


Loose Ends

by Orokiah



Category: Hex (TV)
Genre: April Showers 2012, Episode Related, F/M, Family, Friendship, Gen, Introspection, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 15:33:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orokiah/pseuds/Orokiah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the duel, Malachi digs into the past, Ella and Leon struggle with the present, and Thelma, Alex and Tom contemplate their futures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Hex and all characters are the property of Shine Group and Sky One.
> 
> Context: Between episodes seven and eight of season two.
> 
> Originally written some time in 2007.

Above all else, she was a killer. Her mission was paramount, if never one she took pleasure in. She had experience enough to be efficient, and she knew better than to waste time, or opportunity, on doubt. Whatever the soul at her mercy said, they were to be ignored. Only when all life was gone and another destiny turned to dust could she stop. Only then could she walk away.

Or at least: that was how it was supposed to go.

Tonight, Ella had come face to face with her intended victim. She'd held a knife to his throat, and felt his pulse quivering beneath the skin. But it hadn’t been just any victim. It had been Malachi. The messiah of the fallen angels; the half man, half demon who had lost countless unborn brothers at her hands.

She’d failed to kill him as she’d killed them and their mothers: as she’d killed _his_ mother. Even worse, she’d done so deliberately.

It was a dereliction of duty.

And as she bolted from the church and into the night, she knew there would be a price to pay for it.

  


\----

  


“She should have been back by now,” Leon insisted as he headed down the side staircase of Medenham Hall, in the direction of the lockers.

He noticed a passing student staring at him, a frown creasing her forehead at this pronouncement to empty space. It might have bothered him once, back when he’d been in the cool crowd, a reputation to consider. What reputation he had now he didn’t know, and didn’t care. His head was full of other things, and there wasn’t room in it any more for the superficial crap that had once blinded him to everything of importance.

So instead of wondering what kind of gossip would be spreading about him in the common room tonight, he turned his attention back to the empty space beside him, and the person he was talking to: Thelma Bates, his former classmate.

Or more precisely, her ghost.

“I told you,” said Thelma, shoes clattering on the lobby floor as she scrambled to keep up, unheard by everyone but him. “Duels to the death tend to take a while.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“Okay, so I’m guessing.” She skipped over and plucked a bar of chocolate from a locker as its owner, Imogen, bent to cram books into a bag. “But it’s a really _good_ guess.”

“This is driving me crazy!” Leon complained as he stomped along.

Imogen stopped fumbling about for her missing chocolate long enough to stare at him and nod, in full agreement.

“Dead,” Thelma reminded him with a grimace, “not deaf. Keep your voice down or you’ll be the next one they cart off to the loony bin.”

“I thought we would have heard something by now," Leon said. He blinked back an image of Max, springing up to torment him. “Either way...”

“For what it’s worth,” Thelma said, “my money’s on Ella.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“The fact she’s a woman?” She glanced back at Imogen, still rummaging in vain around her locker, and merrily gulped down a mouthful of chocolate. “Anyway – if she’d lost, we’d know. Well, you would...”

She looked at Leon, expectant. He stared back at her. “Are you testing me or something?”

Thelma rolled her eyes and elaborated as they stepped outside, exchanging the lights of the lobby for the gathering gloom. “Malachi dies, I disappear. Remember?”

He flushed, finally recalling the information, imparted to him somewhere in the midst of the overwhelming rest of it. “Oh yeah.”

“Bummer, hey?”

Leon didn’t dare admit it – but he was unsure what to make of Malachi, who’d been painted as some kind of monster, but had seemed friendly enough the previous night. He’d financed the entire evening, in fact, flashing the plastic with nonchalant generosity. Leon had been so bladdered by the end of the night that it was only floating back to him in abstract pieces. He was fairly sure Tom would still be _in_ pieces.

But appearances weren’t all they seemed. Learning about ghosts and fallen angels and witches had taught him that. And there were strikes against Malachi that even a bottomless pit of credit couldn’t atone for. He was involved with Max’s murderers, and he had demonic DNA. _And_ Cassie Hughes’s: a mind-boggling feat of biology that was every bit as freaky.

To top it all, his purpose in life seemed to revolve around killing Leon’s girlfriend. It might not have been his world, as Malachi and Thelma were so fond of reminding him, but he could hardly take that one lying down. Which made him realise that Thelma, who seemed more interested in chastising him than Malachi or cruel fate or anything else, sort of _was_.

“You don’t seem that bothered about it.”

“Having a bloody _man_ dictating whether I die or—” She mulled over the alternative. “Stay dead? Of course I’m bothered.”

“I meant about disappearing.”

Thelma stared out into the school grounds, searching for something. “No point worrying about something I can’t change. It’s not as if there’s anything keeping me here anymore.”

She turned back to Leon with a shrug, resigned to the unfairness of it. He wasn’t sure whether to be impressed by her stoicism, or concerned by it.

“Nothing at all?”

“Well,” Thelma conceded, “apart from—”

Catching a movement from the corner of his eye, Leon gestured for her to be quiet. She frowned and opened her mouth again anyway, but whatever she’d been about to say was forgotten as she followed Leon’s gaze, and saw what he did: a darkened figure, stalking across the driveway towards them. They watched in silence, transfixed, as it approached, the sound of gravel crunching underfoot getting ever louder, ever closer. It stepped into the light, and into view.

“Malachi,” Leon finished, voice faltering.

“Hey Leon.” Malachi glanced over at Thelma, seemingly expecting a greeting. She snorted and bit down with a violent crunch on the chocolate bar. 

Malachi ignored the snub and slid his attention back to Leon, as casual as if he’d just been out for a stroll. “Bit past your bedtime, isn’t it?”

He grinned and headed inside, nodding a greeting to Imogen as he passed. Leon and Thelma exchanged a glance. They watched in mounting horror as he sauntered past the lockers and ascended the stairs, where shadows were waiting to reclaim him.

  


\--

  


Malachi took a long look around the darkened dining hall before he stepped inside. The last thing he wanted to see was another student concealed in a corner, gorging on the day’s leftovers. The very last thing he felt like doing was making small talk with them.

He didn’t feel much like eating either, though the duelling had been strenuous enough to work up as big an appetite as a sweat. He could have used the time to visit the common room and catch up on the gossip. Maybe invite a few people round to his room. It was a bit early to be initiating an orgy, but that didn’t mean drinks and nibbles were completely out of the question.

But he had things to chew over, and chewing on something else in the silence of the canteen seemed an ideal way to do it.

At first Malachi had been anxious to move forward, to get past the conquest of Medenham and start on the rest. But no matter how far beneath him it seemed, he couldn’t escape the fact he’d been sent here for a reason. To be educated: to train. The school was a test run. It was the world, in microcosm.

He was always in a rush, in his head six steps ahead. It was a quality his father had ascribed to his rapid maturation, and one he’d approved of. Azazeal was accustomed to the slow crawl of time, but he’d spent centuries awaiting Malachi’s birth, anticipating what would follow. For him, the war with heaven and the victory that would follow couldn’t come soon enough.

But he wasn’t the one who had to prepare the ground here on earth. Malachi was supposed to be doing that, by ‘winning the hearts and minds of men’: an easy task, but far from an exciting one. For once, he was ready to take it slow, and open to distraction.

Malachi made his way to the kitchen, guided by the distant hum of chillers and the dim glow of lamps, dotted on benches. Opening a cavernous fridge to inspect the contents, he ticked off the progress he’d made against a mental checklist. He’d sized up everyone with charisma, cheap beer and carefully posed questions, all in the space of two short days. And the church had been an excellent choice of venue for the duel, even if he did say so himself. Latent guilt was more potent a weapon then any sword could ever be.

He was sure his father would be pleased. It might even have wrestled some drops of faint praise from Azazeal’s lips, seeing how swimmingly everything was going. Everything – except one tiny little thing.

Unbelievable as it sounded, Malachi had woman trouble.

It had nothing to do with Ella. He’d felt attraction stirring the second he’d set eyes on her, over Ramiel’s beet-red face, sliding down the glass between them. She was a new toy, and he wanted to play with her for a while. It was fun, and it took her mind off her day job – which just so happened to be killing him.

His father hated Ella. He’d sought to keep Malachi as far from her as possible, had refused to send him here until he thought her gone. Naturally then, Malachi had made a beeline for her the first chance he’d got. If Azazeal had been angry to learn his nemesis was still alive, it was nothing compared to his fury if he discovered his son was trying to woo her. Sex _and_ the satisfaction of pissing off his father: if there were better motives for pursuing a woman, Malachi counted himself fortunate to have all of eternity to discover them.

But these particular troubles involved a different woman altogether.

Until now, Malachi had barely given his mother a moment’s thought. It was a loose end he’d never felt the need to tie up. But it went with the terrain here, the place she’d met his father; his one remaining parent, until today. The sting of Azazeal’s hasty departure had induced a curiosity about the mortal half of his inheritance that Malachi hadn’t realised he possessed. It made him more favourably inclined to it than he’d ever been before. 

Azazeal had left him the stone of Belial, but he couldn’t risk using it. Just seeing her wouldn’t be enough, and if he said too much, asked the wrong kind of question...

_What was she like?_

He’d sought an answer from Thelma, but the ghost had shunned him. Like a wounded child, he’d lashed out at her for it, pinpointing her weak spot with surgical precision, knowing all the while that alienating her so early in the game was not the way to play it.

Malachi was content to avoid Ella for the moment. He wanted her to stew about their encounter, work herself up into a frenzy about it. He didn’t need to be around, stirring, for that to happen. Beneath the ice maiden act beat the heart of a passionate woman: it would have to be made of stone for her not to notice the things they had in common, and start dithering over whether to slay or shag him.

Hopefully the dithering wouldn’t last too long. He had a short attention span, and if Ella spent too long battling with her conscience, he’d have to look elsewhere for kicks. There was a girl in his class who was already giving him the eye, and while she was more bland strawberry blonde than feisty redhead, Malachi was sure she’d be more than willing to show him a good time.

His time at Medenham had begun as successfully as he intended it to finish. There were plenty of irons in the fire, things that could smoulder away without requiring his undivided attention. It might even have been the perfect time to take that holiday he’d never had, bury the nagging questions about his mother with a fortnight bronzing on a beach...if it hadn’t been for Thelma. In a fit of pique he’d managed to ruin all the plans he had for her. He’d pushed her too far, and now he had to work out how to pull her back.

He headed back into the gloom of the dining hall with a chicken leg in hand, brooding over the setback – and bumped straight into David Tyrel.

David arched an eyebrow. “Peckish?”

Malachi considered the chicken leg. “I suppose it _was_...”

“You’re not the only one who gets an occasional urge for a late night snack,” David said, seeming amused. “I came down one night to investigate a disturbance and discovered half of year eleven hiding in the pantry. The cook put poison in leftover pavlova once, to deter what we assumed were mice...”

Malachi eyed the chicken warily. David abandoned the anecdote with a mischievous smile. “Mind if I join you?”

The words had barely left his mouth before he disappeared into the kitchen, without waiting for an answer. Malachi contemplated making a dash for the exit before slumping onto a bench by the far wall, resigned to his fate.

  


\--

  


“What do you think of the new boy, then?” Alex asked Tom, eyes fixed on toenails she was painting an insipid pink. He glanced up at her from his position on the floor. She'd perched herself on the sofa next to him as if it were a throne, tanned feet aloft a table.

It was a pose at odds with their recently adjusted place in the pecking order. The common room was packed, the best seats out of bounds, leaving them squashed in a corner with only each other for company. Imogen was holding court at the pool table, giggling over something with an attentive gaggle of friends. Alex simmered with barely-suppressed rage at being excluded from it; something that would never have happened if Roxanne had been around. Everyone had always gravitated to her, like bees swarming around a honey pot.

Tom guessed Alex was missing the perks that came with being part of the queen bee’s inner circle. Maybe she’d even been expecting to assume the role, stepping out of Roxanne’s shadow and into her shoes. But appointing a new class queen was never a simple case of promoting the deputy of the old one. The competition had been fiercely fought – even if no one had openly acknowledged it was happening – and much to Alex’s chagrin, Imogen seemed to have taken the crown.

He shrugged, returning his attention to the magazine he was flicking through. “Malachi? Seems all right.”

Alex examined her streaky toes with a sigh. “I’m making a right pig’s ear of this...”

“Get someone to do it for you, then.”

“Have you seen what they charge in town for pedicures?”

“I’d be no use at it,” Tom protested, as Alex teasingly brandished the brush in his direction. “I’m so hungover I’m seeing double. Talk about a heavy night.”

She tutted in mock-disapproval and stretched over towards the far side of the table for some nail polish remover.

“It’s not just me...” He put his magazine down and passed her the bottle. “Malachi’s looking a bit worse for wear today too.”

“I thought it was just you and Leon?”

“It was until Malachi turned up. I’d be in far better shape if he hadn’t.” He rubbed his temples with a grimace. “He doesn’t seem to have any cash flow problems, let’s put it that way.”

“He’s probably just trying to make friends...”

“...and influence people?”

Alex glanced over at Imogen and her entourage. “Some things you can’t put a price on.”

“This one I can. It must have cost him a small fortune. He even put his card behind the bar. I thought people only did that on TV.”

Alex tore off some cotton wool with a smile. “Loaded _and_ good looking, then?”

“You think he’s good looking?”

“Don’t you?” Alex protested.

Tom shifted awkwardly, unease blinding him to the fact it was a rhetorical question. Alex was already moving on to the next item of hot gossip.

“So,” she began, upending the bottle onto the cotton wool and dabbing it at her toes. “ _Leon_. What’s the story there?”

“Well, it’s all on with Ella,” Tom reported, his voice as level as he could make it. It was good practice for if he ever had to discuss it with Leon. All he could do in that scenario were the things a good mate should do. Listen, nod in the right places, and keep his true feelings firmly under wraps.

He’d almost come a cropper on that score earlier in the day. Malachi had waylaid him en route to the sports hall with a few questions about who was who and who was doing what with whom. Tom was sure it hadn’t been him who’d brought up Leon and Ella, and he was certain he hadn’t told Malachi how he really felt about it. But he’d been more indiscreet than he should have been, the night before bequeathing him a brain like mush and a tongue so loose it had been a battle to stop it flapping.

Malachi had just stood there and listened, soaking the information up like a sponge.

“He’s really serious about her. This girl was like, throwing herself at him—” He chose not to mention that he wasn’t the most reliable of witnesses, having been face down on the floor at the time. “And he just wasn’t interested.”

Alex looked sceptical. “That doesn’t sound like Leon.”

“He’s changed,” said Tom. “I mean, _really_ changed.”

“Sounds like he’s in love.”

Tom had been reaching for his magazine again, but he stopped in mid-grasp and sat back, the suggestion winding him like a punch. “You think?”

“He broke her out of an asylum and went on the run with her,” Alex reminded him. “Even Leon wouldn’t go that far just to get his leg over.”

“I suppose...” He propped a hand under his chin, trying to separate jealousy from fact, feeling his way towards as much of a confession as he felt able to make. “Oh, I don’t know. There’s something about it all that makes me really uncomfortable.”

“I don’t blame you,” Alex said. Her eyes darted around furtively, as if she was about to say something controversial and didn’t want anyone to hear. Tom didn’t have the heart to remind her that without Roxanne and Leon around to draw attention to them, no one was listening.

“Ella gives me the _creeps_. They carried her out of here kicking and screaming, and she’s waltzing around as if it never happened. If you ask me, she just wanted the attention.”

“Leon said it was nervous exhaustion.”

“He’s hardly going to admit his girlfriend’s a total basket case, is he?” She leaned towards him, voice hushed. “And have you noticed how she _never_ changes her clothes?..”

“I should probably make the effort to get to know her,” Tom said, striving for neutrality. “We could all go out, or... Or something. In fact,” he added, warming to the idea, “I might suggest it to him later.”

Alex cackled to herself. “Good luck with that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Have you actually seen Leon today?”

“I saw him last night.”

“Today,” pressed Alex.

Tom thought about it and realised he hadn’t. He had vague memories of the pair of them collapsing out of a cab onto the school forecourt, but after that it was a blank. By the time he’d woken this morning, the world still spinning, Leon had been nowhere to be seen. Either he’d already gone or it wasn’t their room he’d gone back to in the first place, and the most he’d seen of him since was the back of his head in class.

Right next to a very familiar flame-haired one.

“If I didn’t know better,” Alex continued, “I’d think he’d run away again.” She patted Tom’s shoulder breezily and leaned down to whisper to him, her breath teasing warmly against his ear.

“Looks like you’ve been deserted, Tom.”

With a vengeful glance over at Imogen, Alex resumed work on her toenails. Tom retrieved his magazine and tried to pick up where he’d left off. But the words swam in front of his eyes, illegible; puddles of ink he couldn’t decipher, and couldn’t take in.

He blamed the hangover; an explanation so plausible that he almost began to believe it.

  


\--

  


When Thelma and Leon finally tracked her down, Ella was sitting on a bench overlooking the lake, the water glistening beneath a pale moon. She was staring out at it morosely; her skin so white beside the blackness of her surroundings that Thelma’s first thought was that she was a ghost.

It was a stupid stereotype – _she_ was a ghost, after all, and not a bit pale or insignificant or, come to think of it, transparent – but she considered the idea long enough to realise her heart wasn’t sinking at it, as it should have been. And not just because it was better than the alternative. When she’d seen Malachi, she’d truly believed Ella was dead and all that was left to search for was a body. But if Malachi had used the knife of Orokiah against Ella, then they would never have seen a trace of her again, be it in this world or the one beyond.

If he’d used a normal knife, though – used anything except the weapon that had condemned Cassie to the darkness – then Thelma might have had someone to share what was currently passing for an afterlife. 

She could talk to Ella as it was, and now to Leon as well, but it wasn’t the same as talking to someone who knew what it was like. She was part of their lives, yet she was excluded from them. She could look, but she couldn’t touch. And while she’d come to accept that, it didn’t mean it didn’t matter. The things she could do as a ghost were no longer such a novelty they stopped her yearning for those she couldn’t.

It was a fate she wouldn’t have wished on anyone, let alone someone she knew and cared about. She was busy reproaching herself for it as Leon sat down and threw his arms around Ella, shattering any suspicions of ghosthood completely.

“We thought you were dead,” he said into her shoulder, voice thick with relief.

Ella forced a wan smile as he released her.

“You’ve been gone for ages. We were really worried...” Thelma flashed him a stern glance. “All right, so _I_ was worried...”

“I told you. I knew what I was doing.”

“Then why is Malachi still strutting around without so much as a scratch?” Thelma demanded. 

Ella’s smile vanished abruptly. “You’ve seen him?”

“Why else would we think you were dead?”

As Ella took this in, Thelma noted that her voice had soared an octave higher at the mention of Malachi. Something about the evening’s events seemed to be troubling her. Maybe it was the fact she’d failed to zap him into nothingness, the way she was supposed to have done. Or perhaps it was because a sweaty sword fight with the spawn of all evil had been a bit of a turn on. An idea that, if the soppy look on his face was anything to go by, hadn’t yet occurred to Leon.

“What did— Malachi. What did he say?”

Ella aimed the question at Leon. She watched his face intently, eyes boring into his. She clearly wasn’t going to say anything until she found out what Leon knew. Which, in Thelma’s book, meant something had happened she didn’t _want_ him to know.

It was obvious that Ella’s feelings for Malachi ran deeper than they should have. She’d been waiting to kill him for five hundred years, yet she’d practically had to have her arm twisted into the attempt. And now, when she’d finally decided to stop bleating and start butchering, something had gone wrong. Badly wrong. It was supposed to be a fight to the death: yet both sides had walked away from it alive and kicking.

“Not much,” Leon said, sounding confused.

Thelma’s eyes snapped to Ella, who bowed her head with relief, then drew herself up taller in an attempt to hide it. She cleared her throat to interrupt, impatient for the answers that Leon was either too nice or too naïve to push for.

“So what, did you call a truce or something?..”

Ella took hold of Leon’s hands. Thelma opened her mouth to repeat the question before it dawned on her that Ella had frozen her out of the conversation. She huffed to herself, folded her arms and began pacing back and forth, kicking up clods of grass with every step.

“I couldn’t bring myself to—”

Thelma skidded to a halt and whirled around, alarm bells ringing.

“Tell you,” Ella finished.

Leon frowned. “Tell me what?”

When the answer came it was no louder than a whisper. “He spared my life.”

Leon glanced over at Thelma for a reaction. She avoided his gaze and scowled up at the sky, still not convinced they were getting the whole story.

“You lost,” Leon said in disbelief.

Ella chewed on the edge of her lip, looking almost ashamed at the words that had left her mouth.

“God, Ella. You could have died.”

“But I didn’t!...”

“You could at least have come back and proved it,” Leon retorted. He shook his head, trying to make sense of it. “I thought Malachi _wanted_ you dead?”

Ella pushed her hair back from her forehead, kneading the skin between stiff fingers. “Malachi isn’t something I want to discuss right now, Leon. Okay?”

His face crumpled, anger giving way to unabashed relief. “I’m just glad you _are_ okay.”

“I’m fine,” Ella insisted, plastering a bright smile on her face. She swallowed hard, the smile slipping away. “I could really do with a drink, though.”

“I think I can manage that,” he said, pulling her back towards him.

Excluded from the scene, Thelma walked away with a heavy heart. She didn’t know for sure what had happened, and she didn’t know for sure that Ella was lying. The only evidence she had was a nagging sense that something, somewhere, wasn’t right.

She just hoped Ella knew what she was doing. This thing with Malachi couldn’t end well, and Leon was caught in the middle, however oblivious he was to it at the moment. Someone was going to get hurt, and Thelma was hoping that someone wouldn’t be Ella.

That said, as she trudged away from the lake and back up to school, her opinion of her anointed friend was somewhat lower than it had been on the way down.

  


\--

  


“I was hoping we’d get the chance to have a chat,” David said as he emerged from the kitchen with his spoils, a crinkly sausage and slice of bread. “Since it was Father Heriot in charge when you enrolled here...”

He wrapped the sausage in the bread to form a makeshift hot dog and sat down next to Malachi. “So. How are you settling in?”

“Fine, yeah. No problems at all.”

“Good, good. I know it can be difficult starting so late into the year. Making friends and so on.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll have a problem with that,” Malachi said.

“No, no. I’m sure you won’t.” David chewed on his snack, teeth smacking against wet bread. Seeking a distraction, Malachi allowed his eyes to wander the room, sweeping the lofty ceiling, arched windows, and the lavish panelling beneath.

“But if you ever need to talk – ever have any questions—”

“Who’s she?” Malachi asked, pointing at a painting hanging on the wall in front of them.

David patted at his mouth with a handkerchief he’d produced from somewhere, and looked up. His face softened. “Beautiful, isn’t she?”

Goal achieved, Malachi tore into his chicken with a shrug.

“Rachel McBain,” said David.

Malachi froze; a piece of chicken that was halfway to his mouth left dangling from greasy fingers.

“Are you interested in history, Malachi?”

“Some of it,” he said, chewing slowly on the chicken as he tried to recall why the name was so familiar. He’d spent far too much time of late coaxing information from his future minions, clogging up a razor-sharp brain with meaningless babble. They’d all had a bit too much to drink the previous night, but he really _hadn’t_ needed to know that Tom’s favourite colour was orange.

“And why’s that?”

Malachi made a stab at an intelligent answer. “Well, if we don’t understand the past, we’re not going to understand the present, are we?”

David frowned at the cliché. “The two aren’t necessarily connected,” he said. “This entire estate was built on the slave trade, but three hundred years later everyone has forgotten all about it.”

He pointed at the picture, tinted a murky orange in the fuzzy glow of lamplight. “Rachel McBain here was the first mistress of the estate, back in the slave trading days.”

“What happened to her?”

“She became fascinated by the religion of the African servants. Voodoo. The locals thought she was a witch. And then the body of a young maid was found in the lake...”

His voice was deep and resonant; the words smooth and practised, as if it was a tale he’d told before. In the semi-darkness of the dining hall, it had a macabre appeal that even Malachi couldn’t resist. He found himself leaning forward, drawn in. “She murdered her?”

“I’m not sure ‘murdered’ quite covers it.”

He nodded, catching on. “Sacrificed.”

“The story goes that she was trying to summon something,” David continued. “Or someone...”

Malachi sat ramrod straight as it hit him. _Rachel McBain_. Of course: one of his mother’s ancestors. He thought back to Perie, boring him senseless with the history of the Nephilim one afternoon, jealously spitting out the name as she recalled how Azazeal had been pursuing the women of the McBain line for generations. And it had all started with Rachel – because it was Azazeal she’d summoned.

A strange thrill gripped him as he stared at the picture; his eyes drawn to Rachel McBain’s, seeing something in them he hadn’t noticed before.

_Me._

He forced his gaze away from Rachel and back to David. There was an odd expression on the headmaster’s face, and for one insane second Malachi thought he’d seen the family resemblance too.

“Strange,” David said.

“What is?”

“I just had the oddest sense of déjà vu.” He brushed it away with a brisk shake of his head, polishing off the rest of his hot dog.

“Isn’t that the French for history repeating itself?”

“It’s the English,” David said as a yawn escaped him, “for _time for bed_.”

“Thanks for the history lesson.”

“I’ve been known to give them now and then... Check your timetable.” He smiled and stood up, spraying the floor with crumbs as he shook down his jumper. “Goodnight.”

“Night,” Malachi chorused, his focus back on the painting as David’s footsteps echoed away into the distance.

Suddenly, he knew just how he was going to fill his downtime. He had wondered where he came from, and he knew now how to find out. Thelma might have been the self-appointed guardian of his mother’s memory, but she wasn’t the last resort he’d foolishly believed her to be.

_Who else can I ask?_

Another of his questions. The answer to which was now blindingly obvious: his mother’s family. _Her_ mother, or father. Surely he would be able to track down one of them. He might not have been able to trade openly on the family connection – he had no idea how much of it they would know – but he was confident he could have them eating out of the palm of his hand even without it.

Looking forward to the task ahead, Malachi left the dining hall behind, gnawing on his snack.

The portrait of Rachel McBain continued its silent vigil, watching as he went.


	2. Chapter 2

“We could have just gone back to my room,” Leon pointed out as he carried his and Ella’s drinks over to a quiet corner of the wine bar, still bustling with drinkers despite the clock ticking towards closing time. “I’ve got a bottle of bourbon there that’s about as old as you are...”

“I wanted to get away from school for a while,” Ella said as she sat down, taking her drink. Her hand tightened around the cold glass as Leon sat opposite her, revealing a figure standing behind him with dark, corkscrew-curled hair. It looked so like Malachi it made her breath hitch in her throat. “And you should have let me buy these. I suppose you’re still paying back the money Tom lent you.”

“He’s a mate. He doesn’t mind.”

“ _I_ mind.”

Leon frowned. “What’s with the sudden obsession with money?”

“I don’t want you to bankrupt yourself trying to wine and dine me,” Ella said, aware as she spoke it was another lie; a trivial excuse for the blackness of her mood.

“Wine and dine,” Leon repeated. She couldn’t tell if he was amused by the expression, or if he thought it an instruction and was trying to memorise it.

“If you need money, I have plenty...”

“What did you do – cast a spell to get the winning lottery numbers?”

She put the glass down with a shrug. “Investments, mostly. _Extremely_ long term ones.”

“I suppose it’s not like you can just get a job,” Leon reasoned.

“When you’ve lived as long as I have,” Ella said, watching the man who looked like Malachi kissing a woman who’d just walked into the bar, “you learn to plan ahead.”

“You know something,” he said, leaning forward, “you still haven’t told me exactly how old you are.”

She mirrored the movement with flirtatious abandon. “And _you_ should know better than to ask. Besides – you should be able to work it out.”

“Why, have you got rings on you I can count – like a tree?”

Ella wagged a disapproving finger at him. “You weren’t paying attention the other day, were you?”

“Well, I didn’t _see_ any rings...”

“You’ve forgotten everything I told you about my father.”

“I haven’t,” Leon insisted, the accusation seeming to hit a nerve. “John Dee, right? I think we might have had a class on him once.” He looked interested suddenly, as if remembering some salacious trivia that had been tossed out to keep his attention in school, and stayed in his head longer than all the facts combined. “Do you, er, take after him, then?”

“It was impossible for me to do otherwise,” Ella said. “He taught me everything he knew. Everything I am is because of him.” 

Leon looked even more confused. “So how does that tell me how old you are?”

She flashed him an enigmatic smile in response. Leon screwed up his face and pondered it a moment, but he was clearly more interested in working her out than in solving any other kind of puzzle. “Are you sensitive about your age or something?”

“Sensitive?” Ella repeated, voice sharp with condescension. “Leon, age matters to you because all your life it’s been used to dictate when you can cast a vote, or buy a drink—”

Leon took a sly glance at the pint glass in his hand.

“But believe me, in the things that matter most, it is nothing but a number.”

“Um, speaking of numbers...”

Leon looked puzzled. It dawned on her that he was still well and truly perplexed by her raising the subject of money.

“You don’t seriously think I’m with you so I can get my hands on your money, do you?”

“No,” Ella said. “I’m quite sure you prefer my other assets.”

He grinned at her coyly. “Maybe.”

She smiled back, enjoying the banter. “We can value them later, if you like.”

“Sounds like it could be fun...”

“Find out how much I'm worth to you,” she teased.

He looked over at her, and Ella saw something in his eyes that sent a rush of panic jolting through her. The last thing she wanted was for Leon to take a bit of harmless flirtation and escalate it into something deep and meaningful, especially now. She liked Leon, and it was obvious he cared for her. Beyond that though, she wasn’t sure. Their lives were very different, and then there was Malachi, who had come into hers and turned it upside down. She wasn’t sure anymore exactly how she did feel – about him, about Leon, about anything. She couldn’t have articulated it, and she wasn’t about to try.

“Look, Leon,” she said, intercepting whatever kind of declaration he’d been about to make, “I would never have mentioned the money if I thought you were going to go on and on about it.”

He stared at her, bewildered. “What?”

“I think we should talk about something else.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but saw her glaring at him, and closed it again. “O-kay,” he said, dragging out the syllables in protest.

She picked up her glass again. Baffled, Leon tried a different approach.

“You are acting really strangely tonight,” he said.

An ugly wave of anger reared up inside her. “And this _surprises_ you?”

He shook his head contritely. “Um, I guess not.”

Ella replaced the glass on the table with an angry thump. Leon winced at the sound. She bit back the apology, forming on her lips.

Instead she sought solace in her drink, her thoughts flicking back over the evening: preoccupied this time not by what had happened in the church, but what had come after it. When Leon and Thelma had come looking for her, desperate to know what had happened. When she’d been sitting, reflecting on what she’d done; both appalled by it and at the same time tickled, like a rebellious teenager tasting hard-won independence.

It was obvious Thelma had her suspicions that the story about Malachi sparing her life was just that. But Leon had bought it completely, and she knew he would take it badly if he discovered it had been a lie: far worse than if she’d been honest from the start. However alien it might have been to her, mercy was a very human quality. It might have surprised him to learn she’d let Malachi off the hook, but it would hardly have been a shock.

The truly shocking thing – as much to her as it would be to Leon, were he ever to find out – was what Malachi was stirring inside her.

When she’d taken lovers before, it was always with the knowledge that it was an arrangement of mutual convenience and not one that would last, even if she was foolish enough to want it to. And she _was_ foolish: she fell fast, and hard, and far too easily. Azazeal knew that, and he’d taken full advantage. It was his devious machinations that had delayed her arrival at Medenham long enough for Malachi to be born.

She pushed back the memory, burying the warning it should have presented with the heartache that went with it. Azazeal hadn’t created the problem; he’d merely exploited it. Used against her a weakness she already had – a craving for what she _couldn’t_ have.

She was different, would always be different, from everyone. But now there was someone who was just the same. So much so it almost obligated her to be attracted to him, as if it were less a meeting of minds than an opportunity not to be wasted. Malachi could understand her and the life she led in a way no one else had ever been able to. The way Leon, however much of their world he was exposed to, never could.

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” Leon said, emboldened by the silence. “It’s obviously playing on your mind... This thing with you and Malachi...”

“Malachi and I do not have a _thing_ ,” she retorted.

“The whole fight to the death stuff,” he persisted, soldiering on.

“Which is nothing to do with you,” Ella said tersely. “Even if I did want to discuss it.”

“Why do you have to be so hard on yourself all the time?”

“Because it’s my job to kill him, Leon. That’s what I’m for. And I might never get another chance.”

“I thought there were rules about these things.”

She ran a finger around the rim of her glass, collecting the dew. “There are.”

“You let him dictate terms tonight,” Leon went on, “which was a really crappy idea, by the way. No wonder he got the upper hand.”

Ella smiled sadly, touched by how much faith he had in her.

“So isn’t it, like, the law of the universe that you get to have another go – on _your_ terms?”

“It doesn’t work like that, Leon...”

“What do I know, right?”

“I didn’t say that.”

He peered into the depths of his beer, abandoning all effort. “You didn’t have to say it.”

“I just have to figure this one out for myself,” Ella told him, forcing the topic to a close. She briefly considered trying to reassure him; but she was so focused on her own, seething mass of emotions, that Leon's seemed wholly unimportant. Dimissing other people's feelings, the way she'd learned to dismiss her own, was a hard habit to break. She had a destiny to pursue, and nothing could be allowed to get in the way.

But now, after almost five hundred years, something had.

She couldn’t ignore her feelings for Malachi, no matter how inappropriate they were. Nor did she have a means of overcoming them, though she was searching desperately for one. She was becoming quietly, ridiculously, fixated with him, and it was making her blinder than ever to everyone and everything that didn’t involve them.

But then, she told herself, in an attempt to justify it, it wasn’t about anyone else. This was _her_ fight. It was about her: her, and Malachi.

Unfortunately, that was the whole problem in a nutshell.

  


\--

  


Thelma had held more than one candlelight vigil for Cassie. It was a way of remaining close, an attempt to light her a path through the darkness. A promise that, though the rest of the world seemed to have long forgotten the girl with the blonde hair and the smiling eyes, she would remember.

She’d always found it a comfort. Until last night, that was, when Malachi had stormed into the church and demanded she tell him about the mother he’d never known. His distress at being abandoned by both his parents might even have been genuine, but Thelma had remained unmoved by it, and when he’d reverted to type and started hurling abuse at her, she’d been glad she had. 

Her memories were too sacred to be shared with the likes of Malachi. She’d always resented him: the reason Cassie was gone. The reason Thelma was here and dead, once removed. Meeting him fully grown had done nothing but make her realise, all over again, what a waste Cassie’s death had been. Six months of disliking him from a distance had hardened into cold, implacable hatred.

Cassie would never truly be gone while Malachi was here. But in spirit and in soul, it felt to Thelma like she was further away than ever.

She’d mused over Ella’s evasiveness for a while – Cassie would have said _sulked_ over it – and then wandered up to her room anyway. But Ella was nowhere to be seen, and by amazing coincidence Leon had disappeared too, which left her with no one to talk to and nothing to do. Even her appetite had deserted her. Faced with the prospect of another night on her own, she’d decided to return to the church, to resume what Malachi had so rudely interrupted.

But as she slipped inside the doors, it was clear that she wasn’t the only one with a vigil to hold. There was a figure at the altar, pooled in shadow, lighting tapers with painstaking care. Curious, Thelma padded closer.

She drew level with the figure, and found herself staring at Roxanne.

“ _You_ ,” she said, startled. But in the blink of an eye it all made sense. Roxanne wasn’t hiding out in here because she’d been ostracized by the entire school and had nowhere else to go. She was here because the extent of her involvement in recent events had finally, painfully, begun to dawn on her.

Roxanne blew out her match and stepped back to regard the candles, the half light hugging their dancing flames. Even in near-darkness, her eyes looked haunted.

“You know,” Thelma told her matter-of-factly, “Jez wasn’t really a priest. Didn’t look like he was that good a shag either – I bet you’ve still got the blisters. So if you’re standing here because you’re grieving for him...you’re wasting your time.”

She watched as Roxanne closed her eyes, lips mouthing a silent prayer, and wondered what she was asking for. Probably forgiveness from her friends, so she could go back to lording it over them instead of spending evenings in a grimy old church, alone.

Or maybe it was another kind of forgiveness she was seeking. She’d always thought Roxanne didn’t do guilt, the way divas didn’t do stairs. But so many things had changed over the past few months. The idea that Roxanne might be changing too didn’t seem nearly as far-fetched as it once would have done.

“He didn’t really kill himself,” Thelma informed her, as if it would help; sink in via osmosis. “Ella strangled him and then strung him up to make it look like he did. Stronger than she looks, that girl...”

But it fell on deaf ears, the way it always did, and Roxanne turned around and walked away. With Thelma looking on, she slid along one of the pews and sat down. She picked up a bible from the rear of the pew in front and flicked through the pages. Then she replaced it, with as much care as if it were one of her designer handbags.

Thelma trotted over and settled in beside her. In companionable silence they watched the circle of candles ahead of them, burning out with the brevity of the lives they were mourning.

  


\--

  


“You’re drunk,” Leon said in amusement as he and Ella walked along the darkened, deserted corridors of Medenham Hall. She was swinging on his hand and humming to herself, so loudly he’d had to remind her twice to keep the noise down.

“Not even close,” Ella retorted, snapping back to sobriety so quickly it sent him spinning.

“So then you’re...what? Like, pretending?”

She sighed. “Trying my hardest to make it so.”

He grinned at her uncertainly, confused, but deciding if that was the way she wanted to deal with almost dying, then that was the way he would let her deal with it.

“There really is nothing normal about you, is there?..”

Her head flipped up as if she’d been punched under the chin. Leon frowned, fearing she’d taken it as an insult. “I didn’t mean...”

“Being unable to drown my sorrows is an occupational hazard,” Ella continued blithely, as if he hadn’t spoken, offering him a get out of jail card he was only too happy to accept. “I have too high a tolerance for almost everything.”

“So what do anointed ones do if they want to block it all out?”

Ella mused it over. “Absinthe always helps. Or certain...chemical...substances.”

“That's Max's department,” Leon said, speaking without thinking, too late feeling a pang at the name. “He’ll - He'd have sorted you out. Might even have given you a discount.”

Ella gave him a crooked smile; her version of sympathy. She’d reacted to news of Max’s death by going all gung-ho, evening the scores by beating Jez to a pulp and then strangling him to death. Since then though, she hadn’t mentioned him. Neither had Leon – but it didn’t mean he hadn’t thought about him. Max had helped them, and though Leon had pushed him to his limits to elicit some of that help, most of it he’d done it out of the goodness of his heart. He hadn't deserved to pay for it with his life.

_If it’s any consolation, I was there...I helped him...don’t ask for details..._

Unbidden, Malachi’s claim from the previous night floated from the fog of his memories. Leon had assumed it was a lie; absorbing it now, he wondered if he’d got it wrong. After all, if Malachi was capable of sparing the life of his mortal enemy, someone born and bred to kill him, who knew what other acts of compassion he might be capable of? Thelma hadn’t gone into details about what had happened to Max, but it didn’t stop his imagination filling in the gruesome gaps. Maybe it wouldn’t bother him so much if he had the reassurance of knowing someone _had_ done something to help at the end, however ineffectual it had been; had showed Max even a shred of the kindness he’d shown Ella.

_I helped him..._

“Thank you,” Ella said as they stopped outside her room, “for a very pleasant end to a none-too pleasant day.”

“Any time.”

“Even if you did spend the evening plying me with drinks and only had the one pint yourself.”

“I’m still recovering from last night,” Leon reminded her, the dull ache in his temples he’d been battling with all day flaring up again at the reminder of its cause.

“So you should be,” she said, without a hint of sympathy. “You were in a terrible state.”

“Was I?”

“You don’t remember?”

“It’s kind of a blur,” he admitted.

She regarded him, and for a second she seemed envious. It was an emotion Leon had never associated with her, and one that made her seem almost normal; more like a human being, and less like a slayer of evil with God knew how many miles on the clock. He liked it, even if he didn’t like what had led her to it, and that knowledge made him uneasy. It was what she was, not what she could have been, that he’d fallen for in the first place.

But sometimes the differences between them were overwhelming, and in between the moments when he was so head over heels in love with her that he couldn’t think straight, the idea of trying to change her was a tempting one. Because no matter how determined he was to bridge the gaps between them, he couldn’t deny that it would make things easier if she really _was_ more human.

“Anyway – it was your idea to go out tonight, remember?” He smirked. “ _And_ to get absolutely plastered.”

“Which, despite your best efforts,” she said, poking him in the chest, “I am not.”

“Has it helped?”

She shrugged, still looking faintly troubled. “A little.”

“It’ll seem better in the morning,” Leon assured her. Her distress was understandable; especially since he’d worked out what was at the root of it. It wasn’t just the fact that she’d almost died, which would have been traumatic enough for anyone – it was the fact that Malachi had spared her life. She wasn’t used to losing, and she certainly wasn’t used to someone else having control over what happened to her.

Her pride was wounded. It was obvious. It made sense of all the bizarre things she’d been saying and the strange way she’d been acting, full-on one second and frosty the next. He was quite proud of himself for figuring it out without her having to tell him.

“You’ll wake up and you won’t know what you were so bothered about. Probably won’t even remember it. Okay, maybe that’s just me...”

Ella graced him with a thin smile. He bent his head and kissed her softly, as if she was a fragile piece of china that would crack under pressure, and not someone capable of killing a man with her bare hands. “See you tomorrow.”

She turned to open her door, and then turned back around, hand hesitating on the handle.

“Try and get some sleep,” he advised.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to. I’ll be going over it all night...” She swallowed hard and looked to the floor. “Thinking about what I should have done differently.”

“Sounds like you need a distraction.”

Ella leaned back against the wooden door with hopeful eyes, grasping at the possibility like a drowning man to a life jacket. “Go on.”

“Counting sheep,” Leon suggested.

“ _Sheep_?”

He felt himself go as red as Ella’s hair. “Or, er, you know, whatever. Demons. Dragons. Something to take your mind off it.”

“Take my mind off it,” Ella echoed, contemplating it for a second. Then, without warning, she took a stride towards him, reached up and kissed him with such force he was almost knocked off balance. When she finally released him, he could still feel the heat of her lips on his.

“I’m still not tired,” she declared.

Leon blew air out of his cheeks, slowly regaining the ability to form coherent thoughts. “Er, aren’t you?”

“Are _you_ tired, Leon?”

“Not anymore...”

“Well then,” Ella said as she smiled up at him, her eyes sparkling suggestively. “Fancy a nightcap?”

He grinned at her, and allowed her to lead him into the room.


	3. Chapter 3

Malachi rose bright and early the next morning, head buzzing with ideas about how best to arrange a family reunion.

He knew very little about his mother. He hadn’t even known where she’d died, until Thelma had provided the information. Azazeal had spoken warmly of Cassie on the occasions he’d had cause to mention her, but he hadn’t been so hot on the details. The only truly useful tidbit he had given his son, mere crumbs swept down from the top table, was that Thelma had been his mother’s truest and only friend.

It was supposed to be a lesson to him, on how a sacrifice was no sacrifice at all unless it was a willing one, but it did nothing to help him now. It meant Cassie’s other classmates wouldn’t be able to tell him a thing, and Malachi had a feeling Thelma would rather die – again – than utter one more syllable. And he had no intention of summoning any of his father’s pet Nephilim to help him out, the way he usually would when faced with a task too tiresome to be bothered with.

Azazeal had abandoned him, after all. Malachi thought it only fair to return the favour.

There might not have been a people trail for him to follow: but there had to be a paper one. The school records were the perfect place to start. Malachi had little difficulty picking the lock of the school office; Medenham might have had a progressive ethos, but its security hadn’t yet caught up. Floorboards creaked as he crept inside, heading for the equally low-tech filing cabinets. A drawer shuddered open as he pulled on the handle, the shriek of metal shattering the peace of the morning. Malachi paused for a full minute to check he hadn’t alerted any unwanted attention, before flicking through the folders inside.

The drawer was bulging with records of ex-pupils, the ill fated and the bad apples lumped together without distinction. Malachi caught Max Rosen’s name on a folder at the rear and considered reading through it. He berated himself for the impulse: he’d killed Max, instead of letting him suffer on. But it didn’t mean he was interested in him. He’d been younger then. Still unsure what he was capable of – and Max had been a convenient, and very willing, lab rat.

He smiled to himself, thinking of the look on his father’s face when he’d returned to his prisoner, Ramiel trailing behind him like a faithful puppy, and discovered he was dead. He’d muttered something about how pathetically weak the human body was, lit a cigarette, and skulked off into the night to await news of Perie’s hunt for Ella. No one had realised it was Malachi who had crashed their party, and Malachi had seen no good reason to tell them.

He flicked methodically through the files before finding the one he wanted. Lifting it from the drawer, he moved over to the desk and sat down, swinging his shoes up on the polished surface as he spread the contents across his lap.

One pile of papers was clipped together and labelled ‘Financial’. Malachi tossed it to the floor and flipped through the rest: copies of reports and details of the classes Cassie had taken. As he leafed through a report dated the previous October, idly taking in the fact that Cassie had been a talented artist, something came loose from the pages and fluttered to the floor. He bent to retrieve it, and was halfway through scanning the first paragraph before his brain caught up with his eyes, and he realised it was a newspaper cutting.

  


**_A local school has been rocked by the disappearance of a student, less than a month after the murder of her classmate..._ **

  


Malachi stood and held it up to the early morning sun, streaming in from the window like a searchlight, as he skimmed over the rest: details of how someone named Felix had met a sticky end, an unnamed source’s fears for the safety of the student body, assurances from the police that Medenham Hall was perfectly safe to entrust with their children.

He grinned with ghoulish delight at the last bit, knowing how empty a promise it was. Then his eyes moved to the picture that accompanied the article. He mouthed the caption as he read it, lingering over the name.

  


**_17-year-old Cassandra Hughes, who has been reported missing from Medenham Hall._ **

  


Her eyes struck him first: eyes that belonged in an oil painting. Eyes like Rachel McBain’s, despite the years that separated them. But there was more warmth in them, in the soft curves of her face, and he imagined her gaze to be a fond one. Malachi had been too young when she died to remember her voice, but as he looked at her picture he could almost hear her, scolding him for wasting his precious time trying to dig up the past.

“Sorry,” he said to the image of Cassie, a quiver of emotion in his voice that he was neither used to hearing nor entirely comfortable with. “Couldn’t help it.”

He put the cutting down on the desk and turned his attention to the other contents of the folder. But he learned nothing more illuminating than how to spell ‘conscientious’, which was repeated so many times he couldn’t tell if it was an accurate description of Cassie, or if teachers just had a fetish for the word. More from desperation than expectation of finding something useful, Malachi scooped up the accounts details discarded on the floor, and flipped through the pages. A familiar name caught his eye.

A James McBain had signed all the cheques for Cassie’s school fees. Judging by the surname, he had to be a close relation – maybe even her father. Malachi flicked through the rest of the documents, hunting for the name. But there was no mention of James McBain anywhere else in the file. He was just a signature on a photocopied cheque. Although he’d provided the figures, the payee line was typewritten, as if he’d delegated the task; doled out the cheques from afar without knowing or caring what they were intended for.

“Bastard,” Malachi muttered. 

At least Azazeal, for all his failings in the daddy department, had left him the world at his feet, ripe and ready for conquest. All this guy had done was toss cash like confetti. Clearly James McBain wouldn’t be able to tell him much about Cassie beyond the giant dent her school fees had made in his bank balance.

Disappointed, Malachi sank back into the chair, wondering if he hadn’t been too hasty in rejecting torture as a means of extracting information. But he never managed to decide. Thumbing through the photocopied cheques, contemplating a visit to the bank that had issued them in search of a lead, he discovered something he’d missed: copies of invoices, stapled behind them. Excitement fizzed inside him as he ripped one off its staple and pulled it out, spying an address, and a name. Not James McBain...but Lilith Hughes. Who might not have been Cassie’s father – but surely _had_ to be her mother.

“I’ve got a grandma,” Malachi said aloud, his voice reverberating around the empty room, the word feeling as unnatural in his mouth as it sounded to his ears.

It wasn’t quite one of the McBains. But you didn’t need the surname to be able to answer the question burning, unanswered, in his brain.

_What was she like?_

For all Malachi knew, he had hundreds of blood relatives out there who weren’t of the scaly monster variety. But it was this woman who seemed best placed to tell him what he most wanted to know – and fate had left him a neat little trail of breadcrumbs towards her.

He copied Lilith’s address down on a nearby post-it note, ripped it off and stuffed it into his pocket. He returned the accounts details and reports to the folder, leaving the newspaper cutting for last. It was a curiously personal touch. It wasn’t part of the official records, kept more for posterity than to remember the person in them. This was the silent memorial of someone who didn’t want to forget.

Malachi wasn’t interested in their identity. He was focused firmly on the picture of Cassie, seized by a sudden, childish determination to keep it all to himself. He curled his hand into a fist as he stared at it, and finally slipped it inside his shirt pocket. He shoved the folder back in the filing cabinet, slid shut the drawer, then left the office behind, heart pounding as he walked through the empty school corridors. He wasn’t sure if it was down to the thrill of the theft or the knowledge that Azazeal would have disapproved, if he’d been watching.

He probably was. He’d said as much in the note he’d left behind him: Malachi wasn’t sure whether it was intended to be reassuring, or a threat.

Azazeal might never have forbidden Malachi from tracking down his mother’s family, but his silence on the subject had spoken volumes. Malachi didn’t have to be told not to do something to know it was off-limits. But as far as he was concerned, Azazeal had given up the right to tell him what to do when he’d abandoned him – in favour of so-called ‘higher powers’ that were so far nowhere to be seen.

Which left him on his own, free to do whatever he wanted. And there was nothing, and no one, left to stop him.

He crept back to his room to prepare for his next move, the newspaper rustling with every step; his only tangible link to the woman who’d given him life, and received only death as a reward.

  


\--

  


Tom tossed and turned as sunlight blazed through the yellow gauze draped over the window opposite, trying to dodge the rays stabbing at his eyelids like red hot pokers.

He rolled over and pulled the duvet full over his head, wrapping his arms around the pillow as he settled back into black.

Ten sleepless minutes later, he realised it was futile and threw back the quilt. Fumbling through the haze for his watch, he groaned as he saw how early it was. But the booze had finally worked its way through his system, and for the first time in twenty-four hours he felt clear-headed and ready for anything. He could even have tackled one of Leon’s morning runs, which he normally avoided like the plague, however much he admired the results.

Tom ran a hand through his curls and sat up, mouth open to order Leon to get his lazy arse out of bed too; no allowance made for the fact that, right up till he’d dropped off, his roommate had been nowhere to be seen, and had probably grabbed none of the invigorating night’s sleep Tom had enjoyed. Leon was always dragging him off drinking when he knew how badly it affected him. The least he could do was drag him out of his pit and give him a taste of his own medicine.

His mouth snapped shut when he looked over at the bed in the opposite corner, and realised it was empty. More than empty, in fact. There was an aching void across the other side of the room, where Leon should have been. His things were there, but there was nothing of him to accompany them. All his energy was somewhere else.

The bed was neatly made, navy blue sheets smoothed across smartly – something they definitely wouldn’t have been if Leon had been woken by the scorching sunlight, kicked back the covers and taken off for a jog. Everything looked just the way it had _yesterday_ morning, and it was obvious why that was.

For the second night in a row, Leon hadn’t come home. And soon it would be the third, then the fourth. It was probably going to be like this every morning, now.

Tom stared at the empty bed, his good mood deflating like a punctured balloon as he fought to keep things in perspective.

It was always like this at the beginning of a relationship. It didn’t mean Leon had deserted him, whatever Alex thought. It didn’t mean he didn’t _care_...

Except the cold hard truth was: he didn’t. At least not the way Tom did.

He flopped back against the pillow and stared up at the ceiling, wondering why the things that hurt the most were always the things you were totally powerless to change.

  


\--

  


The first thing Ella did when she woke was to poke around cautiously in her own head, the way someone might extend their toe into a bath before daring to submerge themselves in it. She couldn’t help but hope that everything about the previous night might have disappeared – as if by magic – into a black hole of memories never again to be recalled. And, if she couldn’t forget, that it would at least have diminished in importance; a tickle at the back of her mind she could happily ignore instead of a roar that refused to be silenced.

But as soon as she disturbed them, the thoughts came flooding back, and it was all there, every nuance of it – how she’d disregarded her duty, and failed to kill Malachi. And, more pertinently, _why_ she’d failed.

Leon had been right about one thing. The fact she hadn’t killed him didn’t bother her as much as it had. It was the other thoughts of Malachi she was most concerned about now, not to mention the feelings that came with them.

It comforted her to know that she’d dragged Leon off to bed – not that he’d exactly put up a fight – and not spent a second thereafter thinking of Malachi. But not for the reasons she’d wanted. Malachi didn’t enter into the equation that had involved her bending to unzip her boots and looking up to find Leon flat on his back on her bed, snoring lightly and dead to the world. She’d thrown a blanket over him, resisting the urge to ensure it covered his head, undressed, and slipped into the small amount of bed he’d left her with: back firmly turned in case he woke up and thought it an invitation to try it on.

She could think of nothing but Malachi. Every road led back to him. It was as if she was under a spell of some sort, and she might have considered the possibility if she hadn’t been so aware of the weakness of her own heart. It had never caught up with the passage of time; was as suspended in adolescence as her body. Her infatuation with Malachi was one more suited to a teenager than someone of her experience, and that knowledge made her feel every single one of her many years. 

Never had the truism about being old enough to know better been more apt.

She felt even older when she turned to look at Leon, lying next to her. He was fast asleep still, as peaceful as a sleeping child. Ella pushed aside the stab of affection she felt when she looked at him, forcing herself to remember how hopeless it was.

Leon’s dreams would never be filled with death the way hers were. He would never know what it was like to be on the frontlines of a battle that never ended, or how it felt to go on while everyone around you withered away and turned to dust. It was fine for the moment: but she couldn’t live in the moment. She had to think ahead, and when she did all she saw were the lonely years before her, stretching out into infinity.

She’d never questioned her mission before, however many slip-ups she'd made. But suddenly, questions were all there were. It was a cruel joke the universe was playing: bringing into existence someone she could share everything with, and then asking her to kill him. It was asking too much of her.

Her feelings for Malachi were wrong. She knew that: and she knew she had to fight them. If failing to kill him had been a dereliction of duty, then falling for him would be a transgression of even greater proportions. But she was weak, easily led by a pretty face, even when it wasn’t worn by someone who seemed in every way a perfect fit for her, body and soul. That alone would make it a hundred times harder to resist...

_Perfect fit_.

She propped herself up on an elbow with a frown and replayed the conversation she’d had with Azazeal on that very subject. A conversation that had led, as if it had been planned that way, to the one conclusion most likely to distract her. And when she thought of Azazeal, and everything he stood for, Malachi seemed a little less of a temptation. He was his father’s son, which meant, whatever else he was: he was evil.

If there’d been even a hint of goodness from him, a sign that he was worthy of all the energy she was expending on thinking about him; worthy of her love...

Ella racked her brains, more hopeful than she should have been. But she found nothing. Malachi had stopped Jez from escaping: but Ramiel the Deceiver was as hateful a creature to his own kind as to hers. He seemed to be as attracted to her as she was to him: but attraction was rarely a reflection of self. He was half human: but humanity was no guarantee of virtue, especially with a demon upbringing to take into account.

She’d been so desperate to believe they were the same, she’d overlooked the most basic difference between them. There was nothing good about Malachi: nothing at all. 

It was a crushing disappointment. But it was also a comfort: safe ground, where logic and not emotion had the upper hand. And if she could invoke logic to stop herself feeling too deeply for Leon, she could certainly do the same thing for Malachi. At the very least, she had to try.

_Nothing good. Nothing good. Nothing..._

She didn’t realise she’d been speaking out loud until she heard Leon stir, shifting beneath the blanket beside her. He looked up at her through bleary, half-closed eyes.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing,” she said, with a victorious little smile at the word, before sending him a warning glare. “I hope.”

He mumbled sleepily as she settled back down, curling into the shape of his body like it was her own. In the harsh light of day distance was her mode of choice. It was so much easier to maintain a gap, emotionally as well as physically.

But she was already fighting on one front, and it was wearing her out. She needed comfort too – even if she preferred not to admit to it. An impulse for intimacy that no one else would ever know about was by far the lesser of two evils, and so she concentrated all her energies on warding off thoughts of Malachi, and gave into it.

As Leon slipped an arm around her and pulled her close, Ella drifted back off to sleep, still smiling.


	4. Chapter 4

For reasons best known to the part of him stubborn enough to renounce help from his father’s side of the family in the search for his mother’s, Malachi was travelling to Lilith Hughes’s last known address by very human means.

He was in a taxi, one sorely in need of a trip to the car wash. It had been circling slowly around the grounds of Medenham as he’d stepped outside the perimeter, the driver peering out with a grave expression and quick, curious eyes – whether waiting for a passenger, or drawn by the grisly recent history of the place, Malachi couldn’t tell. On impulse, he’d hailed it and jumped in the back. And now there was nothing standing between him and his goal, except for an endless succession of suburban streets.

The taxi skidded to a stop at a set of lights, the engine humming a gruff kind of lullaby. Malachi tapped his fingers on the seat, checking his watch, and considering his cover story. He was toying between journalist and private detective when he glanced up, and noticed the taxi driver’s eyes in the mirror, trained on him.

They were sharp with ill-humour. Resentment rolled off the man like a storm cloud. Excitement building at the prospect of meeting Lilith, Malachi chose to ignore it. He wouldn't be the first person in town to have issues with Medenham Hall, the place where kids had too much money, too much sex, and too much freedom.

The driver shifted into first gear and roared away from the lights. Malachi found himself pressed back into his seat from the force. He frowned, snapped out of his contented bubble as he looked out of the window and saw the row of terraced houses they’d been travelling past give way to a line of trees.

“Hey.”

The driver acknowledged him with an expression that fell just short of a sneer.

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?”

“I do not drive this vehicle for my own amusement,” the driver said tetchily.

“Or for the safety and comfort of your passengers,” Malachi muttered as the car swerved to avoid a cyclist.

The driver glared at him, mouth open to snap something back. And then, as if in response to a silent command, he swallowed it back, along with whatever had upset him so much. When he spoke, his face was an unreadable mask, and his voice almost civil. “So. Where exactly am I taking you today?”

“I already gave you the address,” Malachi said.

“Not the destination. The reason for your journey.” He met Malachi’s eyes again. “What could possibly be more important right now than your schooling?”

“What’s _not_ more important than my schooling?”

The driver shook his head solemnly at the display of rebellion and made a tutting noise before breaking into crazed laughter.

“If you must know,” Malachi said, annoyance at his erratic behaviour boiling over, “my mother.”

The laughter shut off, like a tap. The driver looked surprised. Stunned, almost.

“I do not understand.”

“She died when I was very young,” Malachi told him. “I don’t remember much about her. I’m going to see someone who might.”

Recognition danced in the driver’s eyes. He nodded slowly, a smile forming on his lips.

“Ah, now, this we – I – did not expect. It is really very touching. A quest to discover a deceased parent...it is the stuff of soap opera. What are you doing in my taxi, child? You should be on television.”

“All in good time,” Malachi said.

The driver rambled on, giving no impression of having heard him. “Getting in touch with your roots...an ideal way for a young man such as yourself to spend his time.” He chuckled delightedly to himself and reached out a hand to steady the rosary beads swinging from the mirror, their polished surfaces sparkling in the afternoon light. “Such curiosity is to be expected. You are of an age. Only good can come of it.”

He was so evidently a halfwit that Malachi was barely paying attention, preferring the scenery that flashed past outside. He glanced back in time to see the man frowning. “But I am surprised they have not...”

“They?”

The driver cleared his throat. “The roadworks. I was referring to the roadworks.” He threw out a hand in theatrical fury at a Men at Work sign, flanked by a row of cones that blocked the nearside lane. “There are no men there. No work, yet the sign remains forever in place. It is an obstacle. The devil’s work.” He chuckled to himself again. “As they say.”

Malachi rolled his eyes, focusing instead on an attractive pedestrian. He could feel the driver's scrutiny. Every time he glanced up, the man was still _looking_ at him; seeming more interested in watching him than the road. He was debating whether to start a pointed conversation about road safety when the car screeched to an abrupt halt.

“We have reached your destination,” the driver said.

Malachi glanced out of the window as he felt for his wallet. He frowned, seeing a building that seemed more of a mansion than a house, peeking out from behind a brick wall. There was a steady stream of people flowing in and out of the gateway, some of them in wheelchairs, some clad in clinical white coats and dresses. A heavyset man leaned against the outer brick wall, smoking.

The rosary beads rocked to and fro as Malachi shot forward. “Hang on a minute. This isn’t it.”

“You said number 65—” 

Malachi pulled out the post-it note from his pocket and checked the address he’d scrawled down earlier on. “I know what I said.”

“This is it.”

“I promise you it’s not,” Malachi said. The driver jabbed a bony finger in the direction of a sign on the opposite pavement. “Oh.”

He glanced again at the vast house they’d stopped outside, trying to solve the puzzle. As he looked on, the man leaning on the wall tossed his cigarette stub to the floor, ground it into the pavement with his toe and walked away, exposing a sign screwed to the brick that had been covered by his back.

With the driver watching him impassively all the while, Malachi gawped at it, too stunned to speak, only now realising that the address wasn’t a house at all: but something quite, quite different.

  


\--

  


“A _lunatic asylum,”_ Alex was saying to Ella when Leon returned to their table, arms piled high with books. Study periods were usually an excuse to chill out in the grounds or head into town, not hole up in the library. But his unscheduled break from school had left him with a ton of work to catch up on, not to mention drawing way too much attention to him. It was time to keep his head down, and try to keep his grades up.

“Psychiatric hospital,” corrected Ella.

Alex chewed on the end of her pen. “So what was that like, anyway?”

“Very peaceful,” Ella told her, with the sweetest of smiles.

Leon passed her a textbook. She opened the cover, but he could tell from the way her eyes danced over the words that she wasn’t really reading it. Ella didn’t need to be bothered about something as mundane as schoolwork. She was far too busy battling a different kind of evil – or at least, she had been. He’d been expecting her to still be beating herself up about her failed attempt to kill Malachi, but she hadn’t mentioned the supposed spawn of all evil or the fight they’d had once all day.

He had no idea what was going on inside her head, and he didn’t dare try to find out. Firstly because he’d probably get another mouthful about how it was none of his business, and secondly because he was enjoying the break from all the monster-slaying stuff. It was the closest they’d ever come to having a normal relationship. Whatever Ella’s motives for her sudden silence on the subject, Leon was content, for now, to make the most of it.

“It must have been full of all kinds of nutters,” Alex was insisting. “Struggling in their straitjackets, weeping and wailing in the corridors...”

“If you really want to know,” said Tom, diligently making notes next to Leon, “maybe you should go and find David and get _yourself_ sectioned.”

“I’m not mad.”

“Neither am I,” snapped Ella.

Alex retreated instantly. “I wasn’t suggesting you were,” she said, looking wounded. “ _God_. I was just trying to take an _interest_...”

With that she stood, picked up her bag and flounced off, flicking her hair over her shoulder in dramatic fashion. Leon glanced after her and saw her almost collide with Imogen, just entering the library. They shot venomous glares at each other before Alex, more riled than ever, stormed out of the doorway.

“What’s up with her?”

“She’s trying to be a bitch and failing miserably at it,” Ella said tartly.

“Alex isn’t a bitch.”

“No. She’s a poor substitute for Roxanne: _and_ she knows it.”

Leon watched as Imogen wove her way from table to table, eliciting grateful gasps wherever she went. “Invitations,” he guessed, seeing Ella follow his gaze. “It’s her birthday tomorrow.”

“How old is she?”

He grinned at her, turning the tables. “How old do you _think_ she is?”

“Alex has been in a weird mood lately,” Tom mused. “Ever since the thing with Roxanne...”

“Which Alex started,” Leon said.

“It wasn’t _just_ Alex,” Tom reminded him. “You make it sound like some kind of witch hunt.”

Ella pursed her lips in disapproval. Tom, still talking, didn’t notice. “Things are really different without Roxanne around. It’s taken a bit of getting used to for all of us.”

Leon glanced at Ella again. She gazed back at him, without expression. She didn’t look like she felt the slightest bit of guilt about what had happened to Roxanne since the exposure of her affair with Jez – who everyone believed had killed himself as a result. It was only he, Ella and Thelma who knew that it was Ella who had killed Jez, and the three of them who had contrived to ensure Roxanne’s sordid antics were revealed to the world.

And maybe Ella was right not to feel bad. Being sent to Coventry was no less than Roxanne deserved for setting out to seduce a man she believed was a priest. He knew what she was like: she would have seen it as a challenge to get him to drop his cassock. Roxanne had frozen out her fair share of classmates, for far pettier crimes, while Leon and Alex – and Troy and Gemma before her – had looked on, sniggering. She’d gone too far this time, almost getting Ella killed in the process. If she hadn’t grassed them up to Jez, Max would still be alive.

The way he would if it hadn’t been for Leon: enlisting his help in the first place, and doing nothing to help him in return.

“Maybe we should give her a break,” he said.

Tom gave a vehement shake of his head. “Don’t let the dark glasses and the silent act fool you, mate! She’s playing this for all she’s worth. She’s loving it.”

“Says who? Alex?”

“You did try to make it up with her.”

“I said ‘hi’ when I passed her on the stairs.”

“Exactly,” Tom said, as if this was akin to Leon getting down on his knees and begging Roxanne to make it up. “And she blanked you. She was having none of it.”

“Because she blames me for what’s happened.” He shrugged. “Maybe she’s got a point.”

“You weren’t the one who made that tape.”

Leon tried to stop his eyes straying to Ella. “But I didn’t even try and stick up for her, did I? No one did. We just hung her out to dry...like her boyfriend.”

Tom blanched at the image. Ella flicked nonchalantly to the next page of her book. “You are far too sensitive for your own good sometimes,” she said, in a tone so casual Leon felt a flare of fury at how little it all seemed to mean to her.

“And sometimes I don’t know if I can afford to lose another friend.”

Tom drew in a cautious breath. “I take it they still haven’t found Max?”

Leon shook his head. “I’m supposed to go down to the station and give a statement.” He reeled off everything David, stopping him in the corridor to remind him of the obligation, had suggested he prepare an answer to. “The last time I saw him – what he said – if there was anyone who might have wanted to hurt him—”

“What, like a rival dealer?”

“He sold dope to schoolkids,” Leon retorted. “He was hardly Medenham’s Mr Big.”

“When people go missing like that,” Tom offered, hesitantly, “they don’t tend to turn up again.”

Ella’s head shot up. Leon wondered if she was thinking of Cassie, but swiftly abandoned the idea. Although she and Thelma had filled him in on what had really happened to her, and why, Ella never seemed to feel any guiltier about that than she did about anything else. He made up his mind to tackle her about it after he’d got through all the other items on his ‘Ways to Humanise Ella’ list. Which was steadily becoming a really _long_ list.

“Not round here anyway... People keep disappearing. This town is like a giant black hole.” Tom’s mouth dropped open. “Hey – you think maybe the police are being paid to look the other way?”

“I think they’re just crap at investigating,” Leon said.

“You should go and give that statement,” Ella advised him. “Get it out of the way.”

He interpreted that as _get it out of your system_ , the way she obviously had. Losing a fight seemed to have cut her more deeply than losing Max, and although he could understand why she felt that way, he wished she would at least try to understand how he felt. That she was so coldly matter of fact about it didn’t shatter the illusion he’d been enjoying all day about their nice, normal relationship – but it went a long way towards spoiling it.

“Yeah. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Don’t forget about it,” Tom said with a dopey grin. “You don’t want them turning up and arresting you.”

“Why would they arrest me?”

“Well, they might start thinking that...” He trailed off, realising Leon wasn’t getting the joke, and meekly offered up the rest of the sentence. “That you had something to do with it. I mean, I’m not saying you _did_! I’m just—”

“Saying,” Leon agreed hotly. “Yeah. Well, don’t.”

He caught Ella shaking her head at him and sighed, relenting, knowing it was because he was only too aware of what had happened to Max – and all the reasons why – that he was reacting so badly to a harmless joke. The thought of Max made him flash again to Malachi, and what he’d said the other night.

 _I was there...I helped him...don’t ask for details...  
_  
He blinked it away and admitted, “I guess – I do feel a bit responsible.”

“It’s not your fault,” Tom assured him. “I mean, if anything, you being there probably stopped whatever happened to him, happening sooner.”

“I doubt it,” Leon muttered.

“And if you hadn’t come back when you did, maybe it would have happened to you too.” He folded his arms and rested them on the desk as he leaned forward, looking earnest. “And I for one am very glad it didn’t.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, well, what would I do if you weren’t around?” Tom shifted in his seat, eyes rolling anywhere but in Leon or Ella’s direction. He looked back at Leon with a goofy grin. “Well...I suppose I’d have a bigger room.”

“And all his toys,” Ella added with a sly smile.

“Excuse me,” Leon said indignantly. “ _Toys_?”

“What else would you call a Playstation?”

“A very, very serious...”

“...way of wasting time,” finished Tom. He caught Leon’s eye and they dissolved into laughter as Ella looked on, bemused.

“Stop distracting me,” Tom pleaded eventually. He flipped a page on his notebook, pen poised over the blank sheet. “I’ve got some serious historical research to do, and it’s taking _forever_.”

Leon’s head shot up, a light bulb going off inside it. But Tom, true to his word, was already frantically scribbling notes. Ella too had buried her head in her book, oblivious to the fact he was staring at her with a big smile spreading across his face, realising exactly how he could get around her tight-lipped refusal to tell him exactly how old she was.

It was Imogen’s birthday tomorrow. But it was _everyone’s_ birthday sooner or later, even Ella, because she’d been born at some point too. And since her father had been some major historical figure, finding out when was easy: far easier than trying to guess, or prise it out of her. All he had to do was look it up.

He slammed shut the book he’d been flicking through and muttered something about needing a different one as he pushed his chair back. Then he headed off towards the computers, seeking something that had absolutely nothing to do with missed lessons, coursework or any part of the curriculum: good intentions quickly forgotten.

  


\--

  


Malachi stood at the far edge of the lake, shaded from prying eyes by a canopy of trees as he concentrated on collecting stones from the floor.

He selected the flattest, pulled back his arm and threw it. It skated across the surface of the lake as if it had iced over, then ran out of momentum. It sank with a splat. Malachi surveyed the water, closer to slate grey than blue in the shade, with a deepening frown.

He’d quizzed a passer by and established that the address on the invoices and the hospital were one and the same: it had a bog standard postal address as well as a name, helping inpatients escape the stigma of anyone they corresponded with jumping to conclusions about their condition. All the confirmation had done was to send Malachi’s go-fast instincts, any desire to rush to his long-lost grandma’s bedside and start pumping her for information, straight out of the window. He’d actually felt _nervous_ about the idea, and that in itself was disquieting enough to send him running straight back to Medenham, without stepping so much as a foot inside the hospital grounds.

It was frustrating, doing things yourself instead of farming them out to fawning acolytes. It had been a whim, to do things the human way instead of taking a supernatural shortcut. But it was one he was starting to regret. It might have been easy if Lilith had been perfectly sane – any mother whose daughter had vanished into thin air would surely have welcomed the opportunity to talk about her, to keep her presence alive, even to a stranger. But since she was away with the fairies, chances were it would be more problematic to get her talking.

Malachi wasn’t looking to be welcomed into the bosom of his biological family. All he wanted was to pick their brains – and since telepathy was beyond even his power, he would have preferred them to be compos mentis. It made everything harder than it had to be, because if Lilith was as off her rocker as a spell in the nuthouse implied, she might not be able to tell him what he wanted to know.

What if she was a dribbling wreck who would just babble nonsense?

What if she couldn’t speak at all?

What if she’d forgotten that she’d ever _had_ a daughter?

He felt downcast enough to wonder if it was even worth pursuing anymore. He’d come down to the lake to gather his thoughts, but they were starting to run away with him, the worst case scenario rearing its head and crushing his hopes. In a fury, he took the handful of stones he’d gathered and tossed them away into the grass, like toys from a pram.

He took a second to recover his composure, then scooped up a discarded stone and flung it out over the water. It skipped once this time, then hit the water and disappeared altogether. As he turned to gather another, he saw one of his new classmates – the strawberry blonde one – heading down the grassy knoll, straight towards him.

“Thought I saw you hiding out down here,” Alex said, approaching with a teasing smile on her face.

Malachi turned and lobbed a stone, this time aiming straight for the centre of the lake. “But I’m extremely well-hidden. Which means...” He turned back with an eyebrow raised, the stone landing with a distant, perfectly-timed splash. “You must have been looking for me.”

“Just passing.” There was a studied flippancy in her voice, giving a lie to the words. “So. Where have you been all day?”

“Who’s been asking?” wondered Malachi, thinking of Ella, who by now had to be itching to pin him down and ravish him.

“Gail, for one. It’ll be David too, if you’re not careful.”

Malachi rolled his eyes, imagining being hauled into the headmaster’s office to explain why he was already skipping classes. It was like being back at home, with his father keeping tabs on him, firing off endless questions about where he’d been, what and who he’d been doing.

“This school thing is such a load of bollocks.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Alex purred obediently.

“Yeah?”

She took a tentative step closer. “Did you know they call this place ‘progressive’?”

“They may have mentioned it once or twice in the admissions brochure,” Malachi said.

“It’s a total joke. This is no different from any other school: rules, rules, rules, all the time. And then there are the ones they don’t tell you about. The ones they don’t write down...”

He found his interest piqued. “Like what?”

She hesitated, as if feeling she’d said too much; exposed what was foremost on her mind without meaning to. “Well, it’s all about who you know, isn’t it? Who your friends are. If it’s not the right people...”

“You end up at the bottom of the pile.”

Alex pouted at the prospect, making it clear she would much prefer the reverse. “That’s this place for you.”

“That’s life,” Malachi countered. He bent to collect another stone, filing away the conversation for future use. “It’s all about hierarchy, Alex. You’ve just got to know how to work your way up the food chain.”

“Without getting eaten?”

He tipped a finger at her. “Exactly.”

Alex sighed, smarting from the injustice. “Have you got any plans for the summer?”

Malachi threw the stone into the air before trapping it between his palms. “Lots and lots of them.” Then he scowled, remembering Azazeal and all his lectures about duty, and destiny. “But so has my father. I mean, I just want to have a good time, and he—”

“Oh, don’t tell me,” Alex said. “He wants you to get a job.”

“He’s already given me one.” He cleared his throat, resigned to it. “Family business. Only son gets to inherit the earth. You know how it is.”

“And you’d rather be wasting away your time down here.”

“I’d rather be in the south of France.” He blinked away enticing visions of golden sands, glittering under hot sun. “I haven’t been down here _all_ day, you know. I’ve been busy.”

She folded her arms expectantly. Malachi decided it couldn’t hurt to offer a semblance of the truth. Even someone as wise and all-knowing as him needed a sounding board sometimes.

“I was sorting out this...reunion.”

“Your last college?”

He didn’t confirm or deny it. “There’s a bit of a problem, though. One of my...friends...had an accident. They’re not very well, up here—” He tapped at his head for emphasis. “So I don’t know if they’re even going to remember the things I want to talk to them about. And that’s the whole point of _having_ the reunion. So I’m thinking – is it worth it?”

Alex smiled, as if the answer was obvious. “Well, of course it is.”

“You reckon?”

“It’s not just about the memories, is it? I mean, they’re something you share but they’re not the most important thing. Really, it’s about...connections.”

“Connections. Okay...”

“You think that’s a really stupid, girly thing to say, don’t you?”

Malachi shook his head slowly, contemplating it. “Actually, I think it’s the most intelligent thing I’ve heard anyone say all day. Male _or_ female _.”  
_  
“Well, good,” Alex said, a glimmer of flirtation in her voice. “I’m glad I could be of some use.”

“Oh, believe me. You are.”

She batted her eyelids at him, then glanced at her watch and reluctantly gestured to Medenham Hall, looming large behind them. “I’d better get back.”

“I thought you were just passing?”

Caught out, her lips quirked in a smile. Malachi smiled back, an unspoken understanding passing between them.

Alex inclined her head coyly, her fringe falling over her eyes in a way that was supposed to be seductive, but only succeeded in making her look cross-eyed. “Bye then, Malachi.”

“See you later,” he said, just enough promise in it to keep her hanging. As Alex walked away, he fingered the smooth edges of the stone thoughtfully, his mind back on other things.

 _What was she like?  
_  
Of course Lilith would be able to answer that one, simple question. If she was drugged up to the eyeballs, her mind splintered in a dozen different directions, she would be able to answer it. Like Alex had said – it was all about connections. This woman was his family: however weird it felt, his flesh and blood. And Cassie had been her child. That was the strongest kind of connection there was, the same thing that had made Cassie sacrifice her own life to save his.

There was no way she would have forgotten. Whatever her condition, she would tell him what he wanted to know.

Reassured, Malachi turned back to the lake and sent the stone skipping out across the water. He was so busy watching its progress he didn’t notice the figure, dapperly clad in a black suit, who was standing beneath a tree on the other side of the lake, watching him.

  


\--

  


On the opposite side of the lake, Mephistopheles shook his head gravely at the sight of the messiah of the fallen angels, whiling away his time honing his bowling skills. He’d opted to maintain a careful distance from the boy, intending to observe him and form an opinion before introducing himself.

So far, that opinion was not a favourable one.

Malachi had been born to be special. The difficulty lay in the fact he believed it. He was dragging his heels, doing everything but what he should have been. His attempts to romance the anointed one held some promise, but Mephistopheles doubted his motivation for that was what it should be. He wasn’t consorting with Ella because he had spied a chance to neutralise her, as Mephistopheles had; as Azazeal had before him. It was all for his own petty amusement.

He was in need of guidance, that much was clear. But issuing orders to try to force him back onto the path would be counter-productive. Malachi was wilful and reckless, likely to do the opposite of what he was told to do. Any hint that higher powers approved of the relationship with Ella and he would no doubt discontinue it immediately. But if he was lied to, and told they _dis_ approved, it could only harden his determination to pursue it, whatever the cost. With sufficient discouragement, perhaps he would even be so stubborn as to imagine himself in love with her...

The boy was just like his father. Same raging ego. Same clever, calculated charm. He was certainly his equal in the way he manipulated those around him with such ease.

Unfortunately for him, he was also equally as arrogant. He would never have believed anyone would try to manipulate _him_ – or that he might fall for it.

With a final glance across the lake, Mephistopheles walked away to report back, a strategy for dealing with his new charge sliding neatly into place.


	5. Chapter 5

The spartan, whitewashed walls and the cage guarding the reception made Malachi’s new surroundings feel more like a prison than a hospital. It was the dawn of another day, and the start of another visiting hour. It had been a struggle, containing his impatience in the interim; but he'd made good use of the time, ingratiating himself further with Imogen and her crowd, and successfully charming Kimberley into ironing his favourite shirt. Taking heed of Alex's warning, he'd also left a note with David, to advise that he'd be absent from class for most of the day.

Since the best lie was always the one closest to the truth, he'd told him he had a doctor's appointment.

Nothing was going to plan. His request to see a patient by the name of Lilith Hughes had been met by the receptionist – a bomber-jacketed hulk who seemed to moonlight as a bouncer – with a caution that bordered on alarm. The man had mumbled something about having to wait and waved him to the row of seats spanning the desk. Then he’d picked up a phone and started speaking in a low voice into it, his hooded eyes flitting back and forth to Malachi, leaving him in no doubt that the conversation had something to do with him.

He drummed his foot with increasing urgency on the linoleum floor as other visitors came and went around him, vanishing up the staircase to the left of the reception into the hospital itself. Time ticked past, with no sign of him being permitted to do the same. When a man bearing a bunch of half-dead roses was escorted straight through, despite having arrived a full thirty minutes after he had, Malachi lost all pretence at patience. He stood up, ready to march over to the reception desk, and start shouting.

Just then, a young doctor in a white coat emerged from the stairwell and walked over to the reception desk. The receptionist gestured over to Malachi. By the time the doctor turned around, he was already behind him.

“Ah. You must be...”

“Leon Taylor,” Malachi said smoothly, flicking back to Mr Nice Guy in the blink of an eye. There was no malice in the choice of the pseudonym. He was sure the real Leon would be only too happy to help out a mate by lending him his name for the day.

“Steve Garrett. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Malachi shook the hand that was offered. “Is there some kind of problem?”

The doctor glanced at the receptionist, both of them looking shifty. “Well – we weren’t expecting you.”

“I wasn’t aware you needed an appointment.”

“You don’t. Usually...”

“I’m family,” Malachi protested, affecting a wounded expression.

“Distant relative?”

He frowned, confused by the question. “More like a long-lost one. Look – can I see Lilith or not?”

Doctor Garrett shuffled his feet, in obvious discomfort. “I’d be only too happy for you to see her—”

“But?” Malachi resisted the urge to laugh, both with joy – the confirmation that Lilith was here had not escaped him – and disdain. He knew full well he’d be going to see her, whatever the objection raised by this snivelling little mortal turned out to be.

“Come on, doc. What’s the problem here?”

“I’d be only too happy for you to see her,” Doctor Garrett repeated. “...If she was still here.”

  


\--

  


“Where have you been?” Ella demanded as Thelma wandered into her room without bothering to knock, munching on a bag of crisps. Ella’s head had snapped up instantly at the sound of her footsteps, as if the ancient-looking book she was reading was just a front, and she’d been listening out for them.

Thelma crinkled the bag in her hand. “The vending machines.”

“I meant the last few days, not the last five minutes.”

“I _do_ have a life, you know.”

Ella shook her head in despair and bent her head back over her book. Thelma stuffed a handful of crisps into her mouth and shuffled over to peer at a pile of CDs on a cabinet.

“They’re Leon’s,” Ella said, looking up to find the cause of the silence. “He insisted on lending them to me.”

“What makes a good soundtrack to a ritual slaying, then?” wondered Thelma, rifling through the CDs with greasy fingers. “Heavy metal?.. Power pop?.. I quite like a bit of Britney myself...a couple of bits, actually...”

“I haven’t lasted this long without acquiring some semblance of taste,” Ella said dryly.

Thelma gave up and reclined on the bed. Ella slotted her book back into place on a dresser and then turned around and stared at her, so hard she shuffled under the scrutiny.

“Thelma, you can’t just stroll in here and act as if everything is perfectly normal.”

“What would you rather I do – stick a white sheet over my head and shout ‘boo’?” She shrugged. “It’s not like I took a holiday. I’ve been around. I even hung out with Roxanne for a bit...

“And then I realised how stupid it was. Hanging around people who can’t even see me.” Thelma drew herself up and nibbled furiously on the edge of a crisp, Malachi’s _sad little dyke_ taunt ringing in her head. “You’d think I’d be used to being on my own by now.”

Ella came over and sat down on the bed beside her. “You’re not on your own. You’ve got me – and Leon.”

“You’ve got each other,” Thelma pointed out. “I came looking for you last night. And the night before. The pair of you had vanished.”

“We went out.”

“Exactly,” Thelma said, tipping back her head and pouring what was left of the crisps into her mouth. “You don’t want me playing ghostly gooseberry.”

“So that’s where you’ve been. Off moping.”

“Off facing facts. I’m not trying to be a martyr. Three’s a crowd...and it’s not as if I’m going anywhere any time soon.”

Ella leaned back. “Why’s that?”

“Because you’re obviously not planning on killing Malachi.”

Ella straightened up in an instant. Unease flashed across her face, so fleetingly Thelma might have missed it if she hadn’t been waiting for it to appear. 

“I haven’t seen him around anywhere since Fight Night,” she added. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you _had_ killed him.” She ran her tongue over crumb-speckled lips, considering it. “I wonder what the sneaky little bastard’s up to.”

“Maybe he’s...coming to terms with what happened.”

“Oh, right. The going-against-destiny, sparing-your-arch-enemy’s-life thing. By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you: why would someone do that?”

Ella avoided the loaded question by not offering an answer.

“I think he fancies you,” Thelma said, apropos to nothing. She feigned a sudden fascination with the floor, unsure how far she should push it. It was one thing making a conscious decision to be on your own. It was quite another to be forced into it because you’d fallen out with one of the few people you could talk to.

“So,” she began, scrunching up the crisp packet and moulding it into a ball. “Drinks the other night, last night...”

“Pizza Hut,” Ella supplied.

“Last night pizza...yum. I bet you thought you’d died and gone to heaven.” She sighed. “Wonder what _that_ feels like.”

“I didn’t think anything of the sort,” Ella said.

Thelma threw the crisp packet ball across the room, aiming for the bin. It sailed straight over. “You don’t like pizza?”

“Of course I _like_ it...well, apart from...” Ella stopped and collected herself, seeming annoyed that she’d been drawn into the conversation. “Never mind.”

“You and Leon seem to be joined at the hip at the moment,” Thelma remarked, thinking dreamily of melted cheese, and little circles of spicy sausage. She tapped her heels against the side of the bed as Ella went over and picked up the discarded crisp packet, tossing it neatly into the bin without even looking.

“And I know you like him...”

“Keep _out_ of my dreams, Thelma.”

Thelma held her hands up, the picture of innocence. “I don’t need to go into them. It’s pretty obvious how you feel.” She was talking about Leon, but still the words piled up behind her tongue, ready to leap out and add a vicious addendum.

_About Malachi_.

“But you’ve got bigger things to think about right now, Mrs Robinson.”

Ella leaned her back on the still-open door to close it, her eyes sparking dangerously at the reminder of her obligations, or the gigantic age gap, or maybe both.

Thelma sat up straighter, risking it. “Round two with Malachi, for instance.”

She braced herself for the onslaught: but it never came. Ella seemed to sag a little and stayed resting against the door with her arms folded behind her back, gazing into the distance.

“There’s nothing good about him,” she said.

“No-o,” Thelma agreed slowly, thrown by the sudden change of topic, “there isn’t.”

“You’d think there would be, wouldn’t you?” Ella asked. “You'd think there would be something of Cassie in him, somewhere...”

Thelma frowned. It was almost a plea. An appeal for her to declare they’d got it all wrong: that Malachi wasn’t a devious, manipulative man-child who needed zapping with the knife of Orokiah almost as much as he needed a haircut. But Thelma couldn’t do it. There was nothing to suggest the baby Cassie had sacrificed her life and soul for had grown up into anything that resembled her.

“Yeah. You’d think so.”

“But there isn’t.”

“Ella, I don’t _know_...” Thelma tried to put aside her anger at Malachi’s attempts to manipulate her and be rational about it. “But I did know Cassie – and if there _is_ anything of her in him, I’m not seeing it.”

“Maybe you don’t want to see it,” Ella said softly.

_And you do_ , Thelma realised. She sighed and stared down at the bedcovers for focus, collecting her words. “I know Malachi’s got this dual parentage...good mum, bad dad. But that doesn’t mean he’s got a good side and a bad side, battling it out for control inside of him.

“We’d all like to think that, Ella. But that’s not how it is. Nice Malachi isn’t in there somewhere, begging his evil twin to let him out so he can go and pick daisies. Whatever his parents were, _he_ is a complete person. And on the evidence so far, a complete and utter tosser...”

She finally trusted herself to look back at Ella. “Just because he’s half human – half Cassie – it doesn’t mean—”

“That there’s any good in him.”

“You seem to be saying that a lot lately,” Thelma said, wondering why it was.

“Because it’s true,” Ella said, the faintest note of regret in her voice.

“Then why are you looking for a reason to believe it isn’t?”

“I’m not.”

“Oh really? Because the other day you were saying how he wasn’t what you were expecting...no horns...no pointy tail...letting you kill Jez...”

“His father’s creature! Is it any wonder I was surprised?” Ella picked up a nearby towel and started folding it. “Malachi is evil. That’s all there is to it.”

“And of course you’re not the teeny-weeniest bit disappointed about that.”

Ella said nothing. She put the towel down, went back over to the dresser and silently began rearranging her books. Thelma drummed her fingers on the bed, uncomfortable with the gloom that had descended upon them, trying to keep things light.

“Mind you, Cassie could be a right cow sometimes. So they have got that in common. And he’s not blond anymore, but I do think he’s got her eyes...”

“Thelma...” Ella growled.

“Okay! Fine! We’ve established he’s an evil arsehole with no redeeming features. Do you think you could go and kill him now?”

“I’ll kill him when I’m good and ready.”

“You clearly weren’t ready the other night, then.”

Ella whirled around, eyes narrowing in fury. Thelma folded her arms and tilted her chin defiantly. They stared at each other for a long while, locked in stalemate.

It was on the tip of Thelma’s tongue to just put it out there: to remind Ella that she’d spent her whole life kebabing people, without a problem, yet dithered about doing the same to her own arch enemy. To tell her that being less interested in that enemy’s dead body than in getting her hands on the live one was wrong. To point out it was no excuse at all that Malachi seemed to share the sentiment.

But that was tantamount to accusing her of lying. She didn’t know that for certain, and with Ella stuck on stubborn, it was obvious she wasn’t going to find out.

For all her kick arse qualities, Ella’s real speciality was denial. Thelma was sure she’d felt some guilt about the circumstances of Cassie’s death, but she’d never admitted to it. She’d trotted out the ‘if Cassie had listened to me she’d still be alive’ line, retreating behind it whenever messy emotions threatened, and she was doing the same thing now with the ‘Malachi is evil’ mantra. The fact that both were absolutely true didn’t make them any less a defence mechanism.

But she couldn’t point that out to Ella. She couldn’t call her on any of it, and it wasn’t just because Ella wouldn’t listen.

Thelma hadn’t been dead a year yet, and already it was painfully clear how lonely an existence eternity on her own would be. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like, living out almost five hundred years with that kind of emptiness eating away at you. Even knowing what was at stake, how could she be angry with Ella for letting it blind her to the bigger picture? She’d lost sight of it herself when Azazeal had offered her the chance to see Cassie again. There was every chance she would have forgotten about it completely if she too had been presented with the chance of a love that would last.

With Cassie gone, and no chance of dying properly as long as Malachi was still here, her friendship with Ella was all she had. She couldn’t afford to risk it by instigating an argument. The knowledge that she’d been the one in the right was definitely not the kind of partner Thelma wanted to spend forever with.

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” she said, standing and retreating towards the doorway, the bristling tension in the room mellowing into a silent agreement to let it drop.

“What’s that?”

“If you’re so convinced there’s nothing good about Malachi...”

“There isn’t,” Ella said firmly.

“...then why _did_ he spare your life the other night?”

Ella’s bottom lip trembled in answer. Her eyes fell to the floor, away from Thelma’s probing gaze.

“Thought not,” Thelma said, as she opened the door once more, and walked away.

  


\--

  


“This is the residential wing of the hospital,” Doctor Garrett explained as he led Malachi down a long corridor, painted in a calming cornflower blue. “The patients here are receiving treatment long-term. But we try to provide them with a certain degree of freedom. They dress in their own clothes, decorate their rooms with personal items... A sense of normality has been proven to help rehabilitation. It also makes the place feel rather less like an institution.”

“And more like a hotel?” asked Malachi, glancing over at a cheap Monet print hanging on a wall.

“I’m afraid appearances can be very deceptive.” He nodded at a middle-aged woman approaching from the other direction, her face partly shielded by a curtain of ash blonde hair. “Off to art therapy, Rae?”

The woman drifted past them, without an answer.

“Make no mistake,” Doctor Garrett said. “Most of the patients on this wing look perfectly normal – many of them behave normally. But for the vast majority a return to the outside world will never be an option.”

“And what about Lilith? Was it an option for her?”

The doctor didn’t answer. They went a little further down the corridor, through a glass connecting doorway, and finally stopped outside a door.

“This...was...Lilith’s room,” he said.

“Before she...” Malachi shook his head, still barely able to believe it. When the doctor had said Lilith was no longer here, he’d assumed it meant that his grandmother was dead; had been moved to another hospital, or released. Naturally, the truth had turned out to be that bit more complicated.

“Before she disappeared.”

Doctor Garrett turned the handle and gestured Malachi inside. He wandered in, eyes drinking in what could have been a hotel bedroom: furnished to be functional. He swept a hand across the neatly made bed before pausing by the window and staring out.

“I don’t understand. It doesn’t make any sense.” His gaze lingered on the gravel driveway of the hospital, where white-clad staff flitted like ghosts between Victorian brick and the wrought iron gate separating it from the world. “How the hell could she just vanish into thin air?”

“It’s not unheard of for patients to wander off,” the doctor admitted, looking tired. He ran a hand through his already ruffled hair. “Disorientation, drug therapy, simple ignorance of the rules – it can happen.”

“I thought you had security.”

“Largely for the secure unit. The patients on this wing are deemed to be low risk. Disturbed, yes, but no danger to others, or themselves. They’re not completely unsupervised, of course. But we don’t tag them, or watch them every second of the day. We just don’t have the resources.”

“History repeating itself,” Malachi said, thinking of the newspaper cutting he still had with him.

Doctor Garrett seemed to know what he meant without having to ask. “In hindsight, of course, Cassie’s disappearance was the catalyst. Grief for a daughter who was missing, presumed dead – you don’t have to be mentally ill for that to knock you for six. That’s quite some blow even for someone with no previous mental health issues.”

“So she was upset,” Malachi said, trying to get a grasp on what Lilith might have been thinking or feeling, trying to work out how much she would have known about Cassie’s fate. Even if Azazeal had manipulated her into sending Cassie to Medenham, told her something about the family history – it didn’t automatically follow that she would have known all the gory details.

“But to just up and leave, out of the blue – I mean, did she ever say anything? Give _any_ hint that she was planning on doing a runner?”

Doctor Garrett shook his head. “Nothing of the sort. The only thing she did keep saying, over and over...was that it was her fault.”

“Her fault?” Malachi frowned, wishing Azazeal was here to help him put the pieces together. He quickly flattened the instinct.

“We assumed she was referring to Cassie’s disappearance.”

Malachi took this in, nodding, as the doctor continued, “Misplaced guilt. Perfectly understandable, in the circumstances.”

“She ran away because she felt guilty?”

“It’s possible...but I’m not sure that was the trigger. You see,” Doctor Garrett explained, “the day before Lilith disappeared, she had a visitor.”

Malachi’s heart quickened. “Any idea who?”

“He didn’t sign in.” He shrugged in apology. “An oversight by our reception staff. It gets very busy down there, as you saw. But I was doing my rounds that afternoon, and I popped my head around the door to check on Lilith, so I remember it quite specifically. It was a man—”

Malachi’s mind raced with the possibilities. Jez? David Tyrel? The mysterious James McBain?

“Quite a tall gentleman – dark-haired. He had some odd markings on his neck – I think some kind of tattoo... And he wasn’t alone. He had a toddler with him.”

Malachi smiled sourly to himself. So Azazeal had been generous enough to take him on a visit to his grandmother. He knew his father better than to believe it had been an act of kindness. He'd pushed a woman already teetering on the brink of insanity right over the edge.

“It was too much for her,” he realised. “The baby, I mean. After losing her own daughter...”

“That would be my guess too,” Doctor Garrett said.

“What about her belongings?” He was racing ahead now, abandoning one train of thought to jump on board the next. “And Cassie’s? I mean, Lilith was her mother, her next of kin – they must have sent them to her when she went missing.”

Doctor Garrett confirmed it with a nod. Malachi’s heart leapt. “But now they’re both gone. And their things are just taking up space you could probably really use. So maybe I could – maybe I could take them off your—”

“Ah, well, I’m afraid there might be a slight problem with that.”

“What kind of problem?”

“When Lilith disappeared, everything she owned was placed into storage...”

Malachi felt his face fall as the sentence trailed off. “You’ve destroyed it all, haven’t you?”

“Not intentionally,” the doctor said, a pained expression stretching his face. “There was a fire. An isolated incident: lucky it didn’t spread any further, really. Faulty wiring, they think...”

When Malachi, taking it in, raised no more questions, he left the subject behind as quickly as possible. “Officially, I understand Lilith is still listed as a missing person.”

“And _unofficially_ , you think she’s dead.”

The doctor looked grave. “Honestly, I don’t know. But given her state of mind at the time she disappeared – well, it has to be a possibility.”

“What, you reckon she would have harmed herself?”

Doctor Garrett considered the question. “She was never considered a suicide risk. There was no tendency toward self-harm. But given the circumstances...”

He teetered uneasily on the balls of his feet as Malachi cast his eyes around the room, trying to get a sense of what might have happened there.

“The police investigation did rule out any suggestion of negligence,” he said, idly sticking his hands in the pockets of his coat. Malachi realised the possibility of a lawsuit bothered him more than his missing patient. Maybe he’d cared, once. But long hours and a demanding job, with the prospect of losing it if the hospital’s budget was blown by a compensation claim, had obviously taken their toll.

Malachi just stared at him, keeping him hanging, making him stutter and ramble.

“Obviously, we had a duty of care...but this isn’t a prison...I assure you, we did _everything_ humanly possible to prevent this from happening. But there was no way of knowing Lilith was going to take it into her head to just run away...”

Malachi leaned his head against the wall, staring at the Lowry-like scene beyond the window. “What was her relationship with Cassie like?”

“Oh, er, well, I’m afraid I don’t know the specifics. She had a lot of photographs of her. Some paintings she’d done. Lilith was very proud of them. She told me Cassie’s grandmother was a great artist, too.”

“So did Cassie ever come to visit?”

“Sometimes.” Sensing Malachi’s frustration, he smiled sympathetically. “Don’t be too hard on her. You have to understand, Mr Taylor, someone with Lilith’s condition – it can be very confusing for friends and relations, very painful. Losing someone close to you always is.”

Malachi swallowed hard, more familiar with the experience – more touched by it – than he would ever have admitted to. “What about her other kids?”

“Lilith didn’t have any other children.”

He clicked his fingers together in a show of annoyance, as if his memory was playing tricks on him. “Course she didn’t.”

Doctor Garrett looked confused. Malachi left him to it, and indulged himself with another long look around the room. It was painted in a soothing lavender, another hue of the pastel palette that had been used to decorate the entire hospital. A neutral space, offering no clues about its present occupant, or the former.

He stared at the chair sitting obligingly at the bottom of the bed, imagining his grandmother sitting there, waiting for her daughter, for a visit that would never come. He wondered what she’d been planning on doing after that desperate flit into the night; where she’d gone; if he’d ever find out.

Doctor Garrett was wringing his hands in front of him. “There really is only so much I can tell you, Mr Taylor. Perhaps you’d be better off talking to the police. I can give you the number of the officer in charge of the investigation, if you like. I’m sure they’d be very happy to explain everything to you.”

“They can explain it to my lawyer,” he said, on a cruel whim. The doctor’s face turned as white as his coat.

Malachi took a second to enjoy it, considering everything he had learned about Lilith’s disappearance. It struck him as very convenient, that doors kept being slammed in his face. That the road to his grandmother – and through her, his mother – had turned out to be a blind alley.

Azazeal had to have known he was only compounding Lilith’s agony by flaunting the son her daughter had died for. He’d studied human nature for eons. To have visited her in person didn’t just suggest she knew everything, it suggested they had more of a history than Malachi had imagined. He’d probably groomed this woman, knew her, intimately. He must have known what effect it would have on her.

But maybe that was the point. Maybe it was what he, or the powers above him, had wanted all along. The removal of anything that was left to link Malachi to his human lineage, for fear it might corrupt what they’d spent centuries trying to create. The net result of which was him: in the dark, and all alone in the world.

“Thanks for your time,” he said, without expression. The doctor just nodded, clearly relieved to be rid of him and his awkward questions. He opened his mouth to say something, maybe to seek some reassurance that he wasn’t going to be paying for his time with a letter from a solicitor, but Malachi ignored him.

He walked away without another word and exited the building as quickly as he could, the faint scent of disinfectant that danced in the air starting to make him feel nauseous. Outside, he found a secluded corner and rested his forehead against the brick, feeling it cool and unyielding against his skin.

And then, in a way he hadn’t expected and couldn’t control, all his bravado drained away, evaporating as if from the heat of the sun. Blinking back the bitter tears that were threatening, Malachi found himself consumed with emotions he had never experienced, and had no idea how to deal with. _Human_ emotions. Frustration over Lilith, curiosity about Cassie, anger at Azazeal: they spilled up, and over, and out. Like the child he really was, he stood having his own private tantrum, thumping his fists into the wall, kicking at it, and cursing every last one of them.

For leaving him – and not caring enough to stop and say goodbye.


	6. Chapter 6

“It’s highly inappropriate,” Mephistopheles reminded his companion, the lack of remorse in his voice belying the words, “for us to be meeting like this.”

“You are in the area. I am in the area...”

“Driving around in a taxi.”

“It is warmer than loitering behind a tree,” Raphael said with a smirk. “I have never understood how you and your kind seem not to feel the cold.”

Mephistopheles steepled his hands as he considered the chessboard between them. “He’s a jealous God. I doubt he approves of his archangels whiling away the time playing board games with the opposite side.”

“He has higher matters to attend to. He has no interest in these trivial pursuits.”

“Yes,” Mephistopheles agreed, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “I believe he’s always preferred monopoly.”

“The game does not matter. So long as it produces the desired result...”

“Unfortunately for you,” Mephistopheles said, eyeing up an ivory pawn, “I’m well on my way to achieving it.”

“No, no, no,” Raphael demurred. He swooped to capture a bishop, its red face twisted in an unholy snarl. “The advantage is clearly mine.”

Mephistopheles acknowledged the setback with a languid bow of his head. The archangel surveyed the board in satisfaction.

“Your king is fatally exposed.”

“An error I plan to correct,” Mephistopheles said, unperturbed. He pushed along a knight. “You’d do well to pay as much attention to your queen.”

Raphael scowled and stretched out a finger, prodding the wayward piece back to safer pastures. He lifted his eyes to meet Mephistopheles’, considering what he saw before him; regarding him with cool disdain.

“We are both weary of this conflict, demon. I think perhaps...you are a little wearier than I. But take heart – should you have one. There must be a resolution this time. We have spent too long locked in stalemate. That is no longer an option.”

“But a war still is.”

“It will not come to that,” Raphael said. He grinned, showing off a set of sharp teeth. “It is only chess, after all.”

Mephistopheles smiled knowingly, and leaned forward to take his next move.

  


\--

  


Malachi had no direction in mind after he left the hospital. With no idea what to try next, and his enthusiasm for what had seemed such an easy search ebbing, he put one foot in front of another and kept going, without ever knowing where he was going to. By the time he arrived in town he’d dismissed the idea of going back to school, and his thoughts were turning to finding the nearest pub, settling in for the afternoon and drowning his sorrows; until he glanced across the street, and noticed a familiar face among the throng.

Leon.

In an instant, Malachi abandoned the pub idea, in favour of a spot of surveillance.

Twenty minutes later, he was starting to regret it. Leon was even less dynamic from a distance than he was up close. His little shopping trip seemed pretty standard stuff, minus a lengthy gaze into a jeweller’s window that was accompanied by a lot of agonised frowning. Whatever he was thinking of buying, Malachi wholeheartedly approved of it. Ella would look very nice in diamonds. Preferably with nothing else on _but_ the diamonds...

He savoured the mental image for a moment. When he returned to his senses he realised Leon had stopped again, this time outside a green-painted restaurant, lettering on the sign above it in oriental script that reminded Malachi vaguely of his own mark. Impatience and curiosity combined, rapidly defeating the desire to keep his distance.

“Gotcha,” he said as he tapped him on the shoulder.

Leon whirled around. Malachi noticed he looked a bit sheepish, as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t be; or at least something he didn’t want Malachi to know about. He glanced cursorily around the streets, wondering if he had another chick hidden away somewhere, and belatedly remembered this was Leon he was considering.

It was never going to be _that_ easy.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“Probably,” Leon admitted.

“Mate,” Malachi said in the man-of-the-world manner he liked to adopt with Leon, even though technically his classmate had years on him. “There must be better things to do while you’re skiving than hanging round the shops. That’s girls’ stuff.”

“I had to go and give a statement,” Leon half-mumbled.

“Max,” Malachi realised.

“Yeah.” Leon looked at him for a long moment, and Malachi thought he was about to quiz him further about the whole unfortunate matter, or maybe about his duel with Ella the other night; bleat jealously about her choosing to spare his life. But then Leon cleared his throat, and changed the subject.

“So what’s your excuse?”

“I had a hospital appointment.”

Leon nodded, playing along, though Malachi could tell he didn’t believe him. With the topic at a close, they stood in awkward silence as the seconds passed, Leon shuffling his feet and clearly dying to get rid of him.

“Fancy a drink?” Malachi offered, prolonging the agony.

Warring emotions played across his classmate’s face. “Er, I don’t know.”

“Come on, don’t be a lightweight. I bet you could do with one. I know I could.” He frowned, all innocence. “Not...busy...are you?”

Leon made a vague gesture in the direction of the restaurant door. “Kind of...”

Malachi peered in, not taking the hint. “Late lunch?”

“I was just going to book...something.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“Does there need to be an occasion?”

Malachi raised an inquiring eyebrow. Leon stared him out for a second and then wilted, his attempts at deflecting the question no match for Malachi’s will to get it answered.

“It’s Ella’s birthday,” he told him.

“Really?” Malachi digested the information, and the possibilities it presented. “Interesting. When’s that?”

“Couple of days,” Leon said. He smiled, so proud of his achievement in relating the fact that Malachi concluded Ella hadn’t been too keen on volunteering it.

“So you’re taking her out, are you?”

“Well, I thought – a few of the gang—”

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll _love_ that.”

“Not a word to Ella, all right?” ordered Leon, not detecting the sarcasm, busy scrambling to regain some of the ground he’d lost in letting it slip so easily. “It’s supposed to be a surprise.”

Malachi acceded with a ready nod, amused by the hole Leon was digging for himself. He leaned over to scan the menu stuck to the inside of the window, in an effort to disguise it.

“So tell me – what are you like at the ancient art of the chopsticks?”

“Not bad,” Leon said cautiously. “It’s sort of an acquired skill.”

“Well, you can always do with a bit more practice. I know I could. Been a while since I had the chance.”

“You could get a takeaway.”

“I could, yeah. But it’s not the same as cracking fortune cookies round a table with a big group of...friends.” He put a slight emphasis on the last word, recalling Leon tetchily telling him that he knew who his friends were: a chip in the armour just begging to be exploited. “I mean, noodles for one – that’s just sad.”

Leon didn’t offer an opinion; the good sense of excluding his girlfriend’s mortal enemy from her birthday bash battling with the good manners it would be to extend an invitation.

“And lonely,” Malachi added, going for broke. “By the way, I had a good time the other night. You and Tom really know how to party.”

“We try,” Leon said. His expression turned serious. “I guess I do owe you, don’t I...”

“Owe me?” Malachi asked.

“The other night?”

Malachi cast his thoughts back with a frown, searching for something he’d done recently that had left Leon so indebted to him. “Oh,” he said, no idea what Leon was talking about. “That.”

Leon opened his mouth to say something. Malachi held up a hand to stop him. “No big deal. Forget it. Really. I have.” He gestured at Leon with an imaginary pair of chopsticks. “Chop chop, then. Don’t let me keep you.”

Released at last, Leon scurried away. Unfazed, Malachi leaned back against the window frame and began to count. He reached four and a half before Leon stopped in his tracks, and turned back with a sigh.

“Look, about Ella’s birthday. I don’t suppose you’d like to...”

Malachi had no hesitation in accepting the invitation, or in letting Leon know what an unexpected pleasure it had been to receive it.

Watching the restaurant door swing shut as Leon went inside, he allowed his face to break into a wide, gleeful grin. He was barely able to resist the urge to punch the air in victory, and suddenly it struck him: this was what he’d been missing. An enthusiasm he thought he’d lost, or maybe had never truly discovered at all. But not for his stuttering quest to learn more about Cassie – it was enthusiasm for what he’d been put on this earth to do.

He’d thought that manipulating people wasn’t exciting, that he couldn’t get a thrill from something that came as naturally to him as breathing. But he’d been wrong. It was the biggest buzz imaginable – and short of anything involving the exchange of bodily fluids, the best kind of fun there was.

He headed away with a newfound spring in his step, looking forward to the party, and the opportunities it was sure to bring.

  


\--

  


“Where _is_ everyone?” Tom was asking as Thelma drifted aimlessly past the common room. She peered in, curiosity piqued, and saw that the room was empty, except for Tom and Alex. He was hunched up on the settee by the pool table, looking up at Alex – or rather, the back of her head. She was standing by the window, staring out of it.

“Good question,” Thelma muttered. She wandered in and heaved herself up on the pool table, legs dangling over the sides, toying with the cue ball as she waited for an answer.

“Most of them have gone out,” Alex said flatly. Her lips twitched, a ghost of a smile. “And this is what it's going to be like, you know... From now on.”

“Out where?”

“Down to the village. Some kind of party.”

Tom digested the information. “So why don’t we go too?”

“I don’t need a date, Tom.”

“Oh, no, I don’t mean...not like...let’s just go. Come on. It’ll be a cheap night. Well, it will for me. I’m sticking to Diet Coke from now on. Or maybe tap water.” He chuckled, and glanced over expectantly, waiting for a response from Alex. But she continued to stare out of the window, no sign she’d even heard him speak. Seeming to abandon hope of making conversation, he sprang out of his seat with a decisive clap of his hands.

“Go on. Go and get changed and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

“It’s really sweet of you to offer,” Alex said. “But we can’t.”

“Oh come on,” Tom urged her. “It’s not like either of us have got anything better to do. Well, I _could_ do with some help with my coursework, if you’re really at a loose end...”

“You don’t get it, do you?” she said icily, turning to face him.

Tom blinked at her. “Get what?”

“We can’t go to the party. _I_ can’t go to the party. _I_ wasn’t invited.”

“Oh,” said Tom. He sat down again, with the air of a man settling in for the long haul. “So who’s throwing the party?”

“Imogen,” Alex hissed.

“Ah.”

“Not that she’s doing anything exciting... I mean, the village _pub_.”

Tom leaned forward and clasped his hands together, choosing his words with care. “Well,” he said, looking up at Alex, “her boyfriend does work there.”

“Yeah,” Alex agreed. “And apparently he’s not just some deadbeat barman. _Apparently_ he’s only working there while he saves up for a sports car.” She stared off into space as Thelma experimentally aimed the cue ball at her head. “It’s just _wrong_ , isn’t it?”

Tom gave the matter serious consideration, as if he was calculating the points required for the next level of a video game. “It does sound a bit far-fetched...I suppose it depends how much he earns...” He lifted a finger in triumph. “Maybe if the _tips_ are generous...”

Alex rolled her eyes discreetly. “I meant that Imogen’s deepest desire is to be driven around in her boyfriend’s Lamborghini.”

“She wants him to make something of himself. It’s only natural.” 

“It’s pathetic. Where does clinging to someone else’s coat tails get you? She should want to make something of _herself_.”

“Well,” Tom reflected, “we’ve all got to want something.”

“Yeah,” Alex said. Her voice cracked, just a little. “And it's usually something we can't have.”

Thelma nodded glumly. A faint, resigned smile settled on Alex’s face. Tom looked away, his expression pinched in pain.

“Look, Alex,” he began, after a moment’s pause. “You’re not Leon.”

“I should hope not,” Alex retorted, but her eyes were warm with amusement; the ice beginning to thaw.

“And I’m not Roxanne, or Imogen, or...whoever. What I’m saying is...I know we’re not exactly each other’s first choices. But I’m still your mate. And I’d like to think you were mine. So let’s try and make the best of it, yeah?”

Two spots of colour bloomed on Alex’s cheeks. Thelma wasn’t quite sure why: maybe she was embarrassed by her petulance. Maybe she’d just realised that, like it or not, Tom was the best friend she had right now, and she couldn’t afford to push him away – and Thelma could certainly relate to that. Whatever the reason was, she slowly began to nod.

“Look on the bright side,” Tom added. “We’ve got the entire common room to ourselves.” He flung out his arms for emphasis. “The entire _school_ , probably.”

“Not all it’s cracked up to be,” Thelma assured them.

“We could put the TV on, watch whatever we want for a change...”

Thelma brightened at the prospect of perfecting her poltergeist act with a spot of channel hopping.

“...and I’ve got some great new games in my room...” He shrugged. “Got them in the post this morning. I was going to show them to Leon, but he went to give that statement to the police, about Max...” His voice trailed off. “Haven’t seen him since.”

“Maybe they locked him up,” Alex said. “What kind of sentence do you get for breaking someone out of the nuthouse?”

“Nah. He’ll be off somewhere with Ella.” Tom twiddled his thumbs awkwardly. “He usually is.”

“You should save them for him then,” Alex said. It didn't sound like rejection: more like she was trying to be kind. “Anyway... I thought you wanted some help with your coursework?”

“Well, I do...”

She gestured him up with a nod of her head. “Come on then, genius. Before they lock up the library. Or I change my mind and decide to spend the night washing my hair.” She held up a hand, examining it in disgust. “And painting my nails...”

“What’s wrong with your nails now?”

“Too pale and insignificant,” Alex said with a sigh. She threaded her arm through Tom’s. “I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”

They left the common room, a united front, closing the door behind them. Thelma battled with the urge to follow, feeling somewhat comforted by what she’d witnessed. She wasn’t the only one who was wandering the halls of Medenham, unnoticed. Alex and Tom were excluded by new friendships and relationships, no longer the centre of an attention they’d come to take for granted. Roxanne had been shut out by her own misdemeanours, and the only time anyone looked at her now was to marvel at how far she’d fallen.

But none of them were alone in the way she was. No one was. Alex and Tom still had each other to turn to, whether they really wanted to or not. Roxanne had her prayers, not to mention the ear of the priest who braved the church now and then to fill in for Jez, and even seemed to be a real priest this time and not a Nephilim impostor. The only person in Thelma’s position...was Thelma.

She adopted a lotus position, tucking her legs underneath her to ensure they couldn’t betray her and make a dive for it. It was time to put into practice what she’d said to Ella, about learning to be on her own. If she couldn’t enjoy her own company when the alternative was being a bookworm with Alex and Tom, or contemplating the error of her ways with Roxanne...

“Me time is _good_ time,” Thelma said aloud, trying to instil some conviction in her voice.

She stared at the empty room as the words floated forlornly around it, wondering if all of eternity was long enough to learn the one lesson this school seemed unable to teach her.

  


\--

  


“You were a long time giving that statement,” Ella said as she looked up from her folder to see Leon sitting down next to her on one of the grassy banks separating Medenham Hall from the grounds below, the late evening sun casting mottled patches of sunlight upon it.

He shrugged evasively. “Where’s Thelma?”

“Around,” guessed Ella, recalling their last conversation, discomfited by the direction it had taken. She hadn’t intended to ask Thelma her opinion of Malachi: she’d already known what the answer would be. She loathed him as much as she had Azazeal, and she had just as little faith that there might be some goodness within him. Yet the question had slipped out anyway. It had achieved nothing except to confirm Thelma’s suspicions about the duel, and give her a chance to air her grievances.

Thelma was far from objective when it came to Malachi – but that didn’t mean she was wrong.

“It’s strange,” Leon reflected, lying down and resting his hands behind his head. “I didn’t think I’d be able to handle it at first. You know – seeing Thelma. Talking to her. But it feels stranger now _not_ seeing her.”

“She does have that effect on you,” Ella agreed.

“So, do you think I’ll see any other ghosts?”

She closed her folder with a smile. “How do you know you haven’t already? Police stations, for instance,” she went on, warming to the theme. “Unworldly beings tend to cluster there. For example—”

Leon lifted his head. “Are you trying to ask me how the statement went?”

Ella shook her head, confused. “No.”

He shielded his eyes with a hand and stared at her for a second, hard. Then he nodded, apparently to himself, and stared back up at the sky, still an endless span of blue, dotted with marshmallow clouds. Ella couldn’t work out whether this meant he wanted to talk about his visit to the station, or if he was trying to avoid it.

“That cloud there looks just like a football,” Leon decided.

She frowned and followed his finger as he pointed upwards. “It looks remarkably like a cloud.”

He rolled onto his side to face her. She stared back at him. “What?”

“You have _no_ imagination.”

“I can think of several creative ways to extract your tongue.”

Leon rolled his eyes and took hold of her wrist, gesturing for her not to resist. He pulled her down until she was lying on her back next to him. Ella shuffled awkwardly while he waited for the spherical cloud to drift past and then pointed up at another one, tapered and thin, floating frothily above them.

“What about that one?”

“What about it?”

“Tell me what it looks like.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” Leon countered with a grin. Ella squinted up at the sky, humouring him.

“Some kind of...sword.”

Leon started to laugh.

“A dagger. A spear?”

“That is so typical. You think of a _weapon_...”

“What does it look like to you?” Ella demanded.

“Well, it’s _obviously_ a goalpost.”

She snorted and screwed up her eyes against the sun, enjoying the feel of it, warm against her skin; letting her guard down for a rare instant of relaxation. Leon’s hand found hers, the grass warm beneath them as they lay there. She sneaked a look at him, melting a little, in a way that had nothing to do with the sun beating down on her.

“The police think Max is dead,” he said after a while. “They reckon it was some kind of turf war. They said he probably just got caught in the crossfire.”

Ella smiled bitterly. “Then they’re closer to the truth than they realise.”

“They said they probably won’t find the body. Turns out there’s been a lot of that going around lately.”

Ella turned to look at him, watching as his jaw worked, chewing something over in silence.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said eventually. “Something I’ve been thinking about a lot...like, all the time...”

He sat up and Ella followed suit, the words striking a chord.

“Actually,” she confessed, folding her hands in her lap, “there’s something I haven’t told you either.”

“Yeah, your age. I know. I mean – not that I do. Know it. Not a clue.”

“Not that.” She swallowed hard, wrestling with the compulsion to unburden herself. She’d been intent on keeping what had happened during the duel a secret, but it no longer seemed like such a good idea. She needed to admit what had happened, if not the reason why. Before Malachi had the chance to exploit it, and use it against her.

“It’s Malachi,” Leon continued.

“Malachi,” she echoed, wondering how he was going to take it when he found out she’d lied to him. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth to speak – but Leon, full of confessional zeal, dived in before her.

“Tom and I met up with him,” he blurted out. “In town, the other night. When we came back to school.”

“Yes, I know. Thelma told me.”

He plucked a handful of grass and watched as the blades fluttered to the ground between his fingers. “We got talking. About Max.” He met her eyes again. “He said he was there, Ella. When it...happened. All that shit they did to him. Malachi was there.”

“I’m sure he found it very entertaining,” Ella said.

“He said he _helped_ him.”

She froze, the words hitting her like a thunderbolt. “Helped him? How?”

Leon shook his head. “He wouldn’t say.”

“And you didn’t ask?”

“After what you and Thelma said about him,” Leon protested, “I just assumed he was lying.”

“And you were right to.”

“But what could Malachi gain from lying about Max? I mean, really? It’s not like he was trying to be nice, is it? He’s the messiah of the fallen angels. They don’t _do_ nice, do they?”

Ella opened and closed her mouth uselessly, every sentence demolishing the caveats that should have sprung to mind. Leon was trying to convince himself that Malachi had been telling the truth; and she was unequal to the task of persuading him otherwise.

“And after what happened the other night...”  
 _  
_She was hit by the circular nature of it all. She’d told Leon that Malachi had spared her life. Leon had believed her: leaving him open to the idea that Malachi was capable of other acts of goodness, something he might otherwise have dismissed out of hand. He so wanted to believe that Malachi had helped Max that he’d confided in her about it – in doing so, confirming everything _she_ wanted to believe.

The reminder of the lie that had started this should have been the biggest caveat of all. But Ella chose not to acknowledge it. Her heart jumped elatedly, doubts forgotten in the face of her own desires.

 _He helped him. He_ helped _him!  
_  
She closed her eyes for an instant, picturing it: compassion shining in his eyes as he stood up to Azazeal, tried to save an innocent human being from a fate he didn’t deserve. It seemed the proof she’d sought for: proof that Malachi wasn’t evil. Manipulative, yes; untrustworthy, most definitely. But there was something pure about him, after all. Something of Cassie, bleeding through the badness. Something _good_.

And just like that, she felt all the carefully constructed defences around her heart falling into useless rubble.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Leon was saying. “I know that. They still tortured him – they still killed him. Whatever Malachi did, it doesn’t make any difference.”

“No,” Ella agreed, voice sounding, to her, a little distant; a little choked. “It doesn’t.”

He nodded, and delivered the killer question. “Do you think Malachi was telling the truth?”

“I – I think—” Ella stuttered. She paused, collecting herself, trying to still her racing heart. “It doesn’t matter what I think. If you want to believe him – if it helps you to believe him – then that’s what you must do.”

“You know what?” Leon said. “I think I might.” He smiled at her. “Thanks.”

Ella smiled back unsteadily.

“Hey, you were going to say something...”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Not deflected, Leon tilted his chin, awaiting an answer. She splayed the fingers of a hand into the grass, soil gathering beneath painted fingernails, digging for something to say.

“I hate pepperoni.” Ella shook away the soil with a scowl. When she looked back at Leon he was staring at her, thrown.

“On pizza,” she explained. “Everything you ordered last night _somehow_ ended up with pepperoni on it. And, unlike Thelma, I really don’t...” She trailed off, seeing him start to laugh, well aware how trivial it sounded. “...like it,” she finished.

“Remember how you asked me if I thought you were weird...” Leon began, stifling a snigger. 

“Yes...”

“Well, you are.”

“Oh, _very_ smooth,” she scolded. “Because I don’t like pepperoni on my pizza?”

“Because of lots of things,” he said with a cheeky grin. “But don’t worry. I’m working on them.”

Ella frowned at him. He raised an eyebrow, not yet willing to elaborate, and leaned over to peck her on the lips. She pulled him back towards her with a handful of his t-shirt and kissed him back, deeply, trying to fill herself with him, stop her thoughts running back to Malachi.

And then, as if she’d imagined him into life, she opened her eyes as they broke the kiss and saw him: over Leon’s shoulder, striding back to school.

Ella gritted her teeth and forced her eyes away. By the time she looked again, Malachi was gone. But the creeping tendrils of desire, their seed planted by Azazeal and fostered by a lie she herself had told, still remained.

  


\--

  


“Well, well,” David Tyrel said as he strolled into the dining hall some hours later and saw Malachi, standing deep in thought in front of Rachel McBain’s portrait, arms folded across his chest. The room was shrouded in darkness, the picture lit by a dusty shaft of moonlight beaming in from an upper window, as if a spotlight had been cast upon it.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

A smile quirked at Malachi’s lips as he turned around. “Hey, David.”

“I suppose this means my secret’s out,” David said. He cast a guilty glance at the kitchen as he came to a stop next to Malachi. “The kitchen staff are wondering where all the leftovers are disappearing to. Some of them think we’ve got a ghost.”

“A hungry ghost?”

“That’s what I said.” David turned his head for a conspiratorial glance at Malachi. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

It was an opening for a witty retort; a smile at the very least. But Malachi could only muster up a half-hearted shrug. David frowned in concern.

“Everything all right?”

Malachi took a breath. “I’ve been thinking—”

“Always a very dangerous idea,” David said, a twinkle in his eyes.

“—about what you said the other night.”

He looked confused. “What did I say?”

“About Rachel McBain,” Malachi reminded him impatiently. “About the past, and the present...about them not being connected.”

“Well, of course they’re connected,” David assured him. “But often not in the way we’d prefer them to be.”

“What about other kinds of connections? Like family?”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me...”

“How much do you know about my family?” Malachi asked, aware of how little there was in the school files in the way of biographical data. He had no idea what stories Ramiel had concocted about his background to get him enrolled – ‘superstar footballer’ and ‘all-round genius’ besides. The rest was probably about as legitimate as his sky’s-the-limit platinum credit card.

“That rather depends on how much you _want_ me to know,” David said, maddeningly noncommittal, forcing him to do the talking.

“All right...my mother. I want you to know about my mother. She’s dead.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“She died to save me. She gave her life for mine.”

The headmaster looked sympathetic. “How tragic. That must have been very painful for you.”

“I was only a baby when it happened. So I never got to know her. I hardly know anything _about_ her.” He looked up at the face of his ancestor: his mother’s ancestor. The one link he’d managed to find between them, apart from a newspaper cutting already beginning to curl and yellow with age.

“I suppose I was trying to make up for that.”

“So that’s where you were today.”

Malachi felt his mouth fall open and hiked it closed again. A glimmer of a smile crossed David's face, but he said nothing.

“Digging into the past,” Malachi confirmed.

“What did you unearth?”

He pictured Lilith’s empty room. “Nothing of consequence.”

“And now you’re feeling unfulfilled.”

“Frustrated.” He shrugged. “All I was looking for was someone who could tell me what she was like – someone in particular. And I didn’t find them, and I don’t know anything more now than I did this morning. So there you go. I’ve known you five minutes and you now know as much as I do about my own mother.”

“There must be someone else you can ask.”

“No one I can be bothered to look for,” Malachi said tersely. He wondered just how thorough Azazeal had been. For all he knew, James McBain had been scared off too; had run away, just like Lilith had. “No one I’m likely to find if I do go looking.”

“So what did you find out?” asked David. “These things of no consequence?”

“That she was good at art.” He laughed to himself, short and arch. “What’s that supposed to tell me?”

“You haven’t inherited her talent, I take it?”

“I can draw some things,” Malachi said, fingers moving, unconsciously, to the mark on his neck. “But I’m no Van Gogh. It was all I could ever do to colour in a picture without going over the lines.”

“Then read between them,” David suggested. “You said she was an artist. Which means she had an eye for beauty...was probably quite patient...”

Malachi tugged sulkily at the bottom of his shirt. “I was hoping for something more concrete than a supposition.”

“Yet you’re overlooking the most concrete fact there is?” As Malachi stared blankly at him, he added, “You’re her son.”

“But what does that _mean_?”

“It means she’s a part of you.”

Malachi stared into the darkness of the dining hall; saw in it the darkness of his father’s heart – of his own. And then Rachel’s eyes drew his gaze; the eyes so like Cassie’s – so like his.

“But how big a part?”

David regarded him with an unreadable expression. “Well, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?”

Malachi thought back to his childhood: the gothic church that was the backdrop to his earliest memories. He remembered the leering faces, stumps protruding from either side of their spines as they hovered reverently around him. He remembered Perie, spitting out bitter little soundbites about the McBains, and sweetening them later with sex. He remembered Azazeal, laughing and clapping as Malachi swatted flies to the ground and then curiously picked the wings from them, just to see what wings looked like.

And then he imagined what it would have been like if his mortal mother had been there: reading him nursery rhymes, telling him fond stories about her family, taking him to that beach he kept dreaming of and laughing and clapping as he built sandcastles.

It could have been so different. Maybe _he_ would have been different...

Malachi didn’t know why higher powers had wanted Azazeal to leave, or why he’d bent to their will and gone. But maybe they’d been right to be so fearful of his human half, and anything that might have connected him to it. He’d felt drawn to that side of his heritage the second his father had jumped ship. Maybe it could, after all, have exerted some kind of influence. The way it might have done if his mother had been there to influence him.

But she hadn’t. And even if she _was_ a part of him: the inescapable fact was she’d played no part at all in what he’d become.

David pulled down his jumper to try to cover the growling of his stomach, and took a long, measured look at the portrait in front of them. “You seem very interested in Rachel here.”

“I just like the way she looks,” Malachi said.

“Then I suggest you make the most of her.”

He turned in alarm. “Why?”

“I found out this afternoon that the board of governors has sold her to a private collector. They’re coming to collect her on Monday. I fought against it, but the offer was too good to refuse. The insurance premium on this piece alone could fund a brand new gymnasium.” David shrugged, resigned to a conclusion he didn’t like, but had no power to change. 

“Perhaps it was too much to hope that it would turn out any differently.” He smiled sadly, then gave a wince as his stomach growled again. “Now if you’ll excuse me... I think my midnight feast is calling.”

He walked across to the kitchen, disappearing from sight. Malachi took the crumpled newspaper cutting from his pocket and straightened it out to examine it.  
 _  
What was she like?  
_  
He didn’t know, not really. Maybe he never would. But as he looked at Cassie, and saw her smiling out at him, he decided on an answer anyway. The only one that fitted, given everything he knew about his father, the little he knew about her, and the things he knew – with more certainty now than ever – about himself. 

_She was nothing like me.  
_  
And maybe it was another wretched human emotion, forcing its way to the surface – but Malachi was strangely glad about that.

He walked away, turning his attention back to the bigger picture: the puzzle of how to get Thelma back on side. He remembered, bitterness tainting the memory, how she’d spurned his attempts to talk about his mother; how her voice had shook as she’d described her as the love of her life. He looked down at the newspaper cutting again, and a grin sprang to his lips: because of course it had been Thelma who’d left it there, in Cassie’s file, having no photograph of her own to keep, or even anywhere to keep it. Poor sad, lonely Thelma. He wondered how often she went and looked at it – what she’d give for some like-minded company – what lengths she'd go to in order to keep it—

And just like that, the answer to another of his burning questions presented itself.

Malachi headed out of the dining hall, looking forward to finding out which of the locals would be unfortunate enough to have Thelma fancy her. He screwed up the newspaper cutting and tossed it in a bin on his way out, the quest to get in touch with his humanity forgotten.

The portrait of Rachel McBain, awaiting its own departure, watched him go.

  


\----

  


Above all else, she was a mother. She was there to love, and to protect. She put her child’s safety above everything, valued her life above her own. She’d rocked her when she was small, calmed her when she’d woken screaming about bad dreams and terrifying monsters. She would never, ever, let anything hurt her.

Or at least: that was how it was supposed to go.

Lilith Hughes had failed to protect her daughter. She had sent her away from safety, into the arms of the devil. And now she was dead, and he was here, and in those same arms was the angel-faced little boy who’d prompted it all.

He said he was sorry, but she didn’t believe him. He said he’d loved Cassie, but she didn’t believe that either. He said he had loose ends to tie up, and a tear rolled down his cheek as he said it, but she didn’t know what he meant, or why he would pretend to cry about it.

When she’d stopped shaking she spat at him, and swore. She told him she was going to get better, take her grandson from him and raise him the way Cassie would have done; bring out the man in him, and not the monster. But he just held the little boy closer, and smiled at her.

He said it wasn’t really him who had anything to be sorry for. It was Lilith. The person who had failed as a mother, as a lover, and as a functioning member of society.

It was a dereliction of duty.

And it was only when she looked at the door and saw the faerie, fluttering towards her with an outstretched hand and a twisted smile, that she realised the price she had to pay for it.


End file.
